Psychic Abilities For Humans?

[Orphalesion]

Would you be fine with human espers if the explanation given was them being genetically engineered?

*Maybe*. But only if the esper powers honestly followed from things we know we can do now - sensitivity to being watched, subconsciouses that pick up on details and jump to conclusions and let us know things we don't "know", etc. OR, if they involved mixing in genetic material derived from those other alien evolutionary tracks I mentioned - in which case they wouldn't be purely human.

I guess I am more forgiving towards telepathy and other mental powers because I am primarily a fantasy fan .
To me, personally, it is not so important if "this would work in the real word according to our scientific understanding" but rather "is it properly explained and consistent within the terms of the fictional universe" (which still doesn't apply to ST telepathy most of the time)

So where I completely agree with you and Christopher is that the biggest problem with telepathy in Star Trek is that it is never defined properly. Troi could sense things from as far away as a planet's orbit, which is simply ridiculous.

Finding a way to portray "psionic" abilities realistic would be a key. However with shoddy telepathy it is (to me) mute whether the user is human, alien or elf. Same with well defined psionic powers.

I like Christopher's suggestions of pheromones and infrared vision. I actually think the infrared vision was used for Troi in a manga I once riffled through at a Borders Bookstorel where on a planet she could warn the others of atmospheric changes just by squinting at the sky (without a tricorder).
Though he only way to give that to a human would be through in Star Trek would be through mechanical implants or grafts from aliens. Both of which would likely to be considered "off limits" in Star Trek.

And yes telepathy should not be at a workaround for translation, especially considering how chaotic minds are, a telepath would have to highly skilled to sort through the storm of pictures, emotions and "words" that make up our mind at any moment.

Of course one explanation that would allow Betazoid style telepathy which however would not work in Trek, is Tolkien's Elves and Ainur sometimes being able to directly communicate through each others souls, which does indeed do away with all the problems telepathy would face. However the way it was portrayed in the book this could still be interpreted as a communication via mental cues or pheromones rather than mind talk.

Another way might be to portray Borg hivemind would be as a sort of wireless network. This could also be made biological, but would require a very different brain than humans.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And that's an example of what I don't like -- treating "psychic abilities" as the answer rather than the question. Too much SF posits that psi powers can do literally anything. You can violate the laws of physics and probability and common sense on every level and just say "It's psionics" as if that explained it all. But it doesn't -- it just raises new questions. What is psionics? How does it work? What physical principles and mechanisms is it based on? How does it enable living beings to harness and direct such vast amounts of energy? What are its limitations?

Which is the most important question. The best fictional portrayals of psi, like the best fictional portrayals of magic, keep it within a set of rules and limits, so that there are things it can't do. All too often, psi is just used as a "get out of explanations free" card, a catchall justification for whatever magic or illogic the writer wants to use. Just invoking psi powers is meant to pre-empt all further questions about the logic or plausibility of what's happening. It's one of the biggest reasons I dislike the use of psionics in SF -- because it's too often used as a narrative cheat or deus ex machina, an easy way out of problems that writers have gotten themselves into. If it's going to be used, it should be used with discipline and moderation.

And should not be used as a lecture to beat people over the head with, and leech all the fun out of everything. Because that would be bad.

 

[Timo]

I mean, why should evolution lead to incorporeal forms?

Why should evolution be involved in any way? After all, going noncorporeal happens to species that have already undergone the transformation into a culture that can shape its own destiny. There need be nothing "natural" about it, save for that which can be recognized as the human(oid) nature: being noncorporeal is extremely convenient, as it finally sets one free of the mortal coil and its limitations. And human(oid)s love convenience, indeed, it's probably the leading force behind technological development in history.

Sure, the Zalkonians and Opaca seemed to go noncorporeal without actively wanting to. But that was individuals doing the not-wanting; might well be there had been a technological project to get the transformation going, even if the victims had little say. Heck, completely outside benefactors or malefactors might have been behind the transformation! (After all, Trek does have gods. As it should - being one, or wanting to be, is another very human characteristic, and a goal that many species will eventually score.)

Not to mention that being "made of energy" makes no sense.

Sure it does, just as much as being "made of mass" does. It doesn't go into any specifics, but the human(oid) intuition does tend to spot the difference between something made of mass (that is, energy coiled up in familiar forms) and something made of something else.

Too much SF posits that psi powers can do literally anything.

Well, Trek doesn't. Indeed, there are specific and characteristic limitations to the abilities of each "PSI species". And "Dark Page" even raises the compatibility issue, making it clear that there's telepathy and then there's telepathy.

Trek with its hundreds of hours of adventures is great for variety. Either by design or accident, we get dozens of distinct ways of doing telepathy, time travel, necromancy or whatever. Even a longish series of novels written by a single writer (or even several people he or she lets play in the same sandbox) offers no competition there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Poltargyst]

You know, I started to include this in my response, too, but something Albertese said here made me realize that if I did, I would also be taking a knock at the basis for Q, Trelane, and characters from some of my other favorite episodes. You're absolutely right that there is no real-world mechanism, but, in Trek, if humanity has the potential to become something like Q or the Organians, then the mechanism is actually readily apparent - it is our inner proto-energy-being interacting with our surroundings *without* our physical bodies.

Well, Trelane shouldn't count, because his powers were explicitly based in technology -- something people oddly tend to overlook about the episode. But don't get me started on all the "highly evolved" beings like Q and the Organians and such. That's just more fantasy masquerading as science fiction. It's taking the ancient ideas of gods, angels, spirits, demons, djinns, and the like and painting a thin sci-fi veneer of "evolved aliens" onto it.

I mean, why should evolution lead to incorporeal forms? That makes no sense. Evolution is driven by reproductive success. Those traits that improve the number of surviving offspring a species has are therefore reproduced more succcessfully and become dominant over time. A mutation that caused people to somehow turn into incorporeal forms and lose their physical bodies would be pretty much counter-reproductive, so it would be selected against by evolution. There's no scientific sense to the idea of "evolving into energy beings." It's just a thinly disguised version of the mystical idea of the soul transcending the body.

Not to mention that being "made of energy" makes no sense. Energy is a property of substances, not a substance in itself. When we talk about "pure energy," we're really talking about particles -- usually photons -- that have zero rest mass and are therefore "nonmaterial" in a sense. But such particles are constrained to travel at the speed of light. They can't hover around in one place and organize themselves into complex patterns that can house consciousness. Only material particles of one sort or another can do that.

One thing that would make sense of a lot of this thinly veiled supernatural stuff is nanotechnology -- if you posit the idea of a cloud of nanites that pervades an environment invisibly and gets into everything. You could interpret an "incorporeal life form" as an AI consciousness encoded in the cloud (in two senses of the word) of nanites, and its telekinetic abilities could be the result of the nanites acting as a utility fog, operating collectively to manipulate matter. They could also collect energy from their environment (solar, thermal, acoustical, etc.) and channel it to a given point, explaining the energy issue of TK that I mentioned above. It's a rather fanciful application of the nanotech idea, one that was prominent in fiction for a while and has fallen somewhat out of favor as reality has revealed more of the limitations of nanotech, but it's certainly more plausible than ill-defined "psi powers" and "energy beings" that are really just magic and spirits and gods imported wholesale into sci-fi with the names changed.

In Babylon 5 it was the Vorlons who engineered humans to have psychic abilities to use against the Shadows, and even had appeared as religious figures on earth and other planets.

And that's an example of what I don't like -- treating "psychic abilities" as the answer rather than the question. Too much SF posits that psi powers can do literally anything. You can violate the laws of physics and probability and common sense on every level and just say "It's psionics" as if that explained it all. But it doesn't -- it just raises new questions. What is psionics? How does it work? What physical principles and mechanisms is it based on? How does it enable living beings to harness and direct such vast amounts of energy? What are its limitations?

Which is the most important question. The best fictional portrayals of psi, like the best fictional portrayals of magic, keep it within a set of rules and limits, so that there are things it can't do. All too often, psi is just used as a "get out of explanations free" card, a catchall justification for whatever magic or illogic the writer wants to use. Just invoking psi powers is meant to pre-empt all further questions about the logic or plausibility of what's happening. It's one of the biggest reasons I dislike the use of psionics in SF -- because it's too often used as a narrative cheat or deus ex machina, an easy way out of problems that writers have gotten themselves into. If it's going to be used, it should be used with discipline and moderation.

So you're okay with some things in Star Trek that violate the laws of physics and don't have great explanations for how they work (faster than light travel/warp engines, transporters, replicators), but psychic abilities and energy beings really put you off.

 

[Christopher]

So you're okay with some things in Star Trek that violate the laws of physics and don't have great explanations for how they work (faster than light travel/warp engines, transporters, replicators), but psychic abilities and energy beings really put you off.

Warp drive doesn't violate the laws of physics; it's actually a solution of the equations of general relativity. It's just prohibitively difficult to achieve in practice. Ditto with teleportation -- there are theories to explain how it could potentially work, though there are enormous functional obstacles. And I don't know why you'd find replicators impossible, given how prevalent 3D printers have already become in real life.

What's different about psi is that there isn't a real scientific theory to use as even the most tenuous justification for it. The other things you mentioned are implausible, but are at least projections from scientific principles; psi powers are merely magic and mysticism with Latin or Greek names stuck on to make them sound scientific. It's coming from a different place. And as I said, it's all too often used in fiction as if merely invoking the name is the end of the discussion, the automatic explanation for all sorts of impossibilities, even though it doesn't explain a thing.

Anyway, yes, there are plenty of things in Star Trek besides psi powers that I find implausible or absurd, like humanoid aliens, universal translators, and the like -- but they aren't the topic of this particular conversation. This thread is about psi powers, so I'm discussing that instead of the other stuff. I'm also not talking exclusively about Star Trek, not by a long shot. The way Babylon 5 handled psi is one of the major examples of the general patterns I'm discussing.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Warp drive doesn't violate the laws of physics; it's actually a solution of the equations of general relativity. It's just prohibitively difficult to achieve in practice. Ditto with teleportation -- there are theories to explain how it could potentially work, though there are enormous functional obstacles.

You're citing advances made decades after TOS was written. At the time TOS was made, FTL drives and teleporters were devices of pure fantasy, FTL drives especially so. Or, are you saying that you were as critical of warp drives and transporters as you are now of psychic abilities, prior to the 1990s.

 

[Memory Alpha]

Answering generally, Christopher's in-depth response basically is congruent with my own view, so I'll just offer that "psychic abilities" would make humans not human! In one of his books Carl Sagan wrote about how science fiction should try, at least, to obey the laws of physics (which I agree with), and honestly, there is no objective evidence to suggest that human beings have those powers. Those powers are akin to magic, IMO.

That some folks are more intuitive than others, and are more in touch with a situation or can put into words what others are feeling, is certainly realistic, but that is a different issue. For me, for example, I always thought that Troi's telepathic abilities in TNG were employed very highly inconsistently and vaguely (which was why I thought she was not one of the stronger characters), and I really wouldn't want to introduce telepathy or whatever as an ability that humans can "develop."

 

[Christopher]

Answering generally, Christopher's in-depth response basically is congruent with my own view, so I'll just offer that "psychic abilities" would make humans not human!

Well, that part I don't agree with. There are a variety of ways to be human, and there are humans who have abilities that most humans lack -- perfect pitch, synesthesia, eidetic memory, savant calculation skills, prehensile toes, etc. You can easily go to some very ugly places if you start defining humanity based on a restrictive checklist of abilities.

The problem with psychic abilities isn't that they're "not human" -- it's that there's no evidence they're something that can actually exist at all, in humans or anything else. The laws of nature are universal. The same basic principles govern everything. If there were some force or phenomenon in the universe that allowed such things as telepathy or telekinesis or precognition or astral projection or whatever, and if it were possible for organic minds on any planet in the universe to tap into that force or phenomenon, there's no reason why organic minds on Earth couldn't have evolved that same ability. As mentioned, plenty of animals have senses we humans lack, but that doesn't preclude us from observing and understanding their use of those senses. If there were psi abilities, something on Earth would probably have them, and we would've probably found some reliable evidence of their existence and formulated some theory of how they work on a physical and causal level.

So really, giving psi powers to aliens and not to humans is something of a cheat. I actually find it less plausible than positing a fictional universe where psi powers exist and at least certain members of any intelligent species, including humans, are able to tap into it. After all, there's no requirement that a fictional universe have the same laws as the real one; the important thing is that, whatever imaginary laws a universe has, they're applied consistently and logically. If Vulcans and Betazoids and Deltans and Ocampa and so on are able to detect and use "psionic energy," and if their brains are similar enough to human brains to allow communicating freely with those species and understanding their behavior and feelings as one could a human's, then it stands to reason that at least some humans' brain structure would be similar enough to theirs to allow detecting and using psionic energy.

 

[Memory Alpha]

Answering generally, Christopher's in-depth response basically is congruent with my own view, so I'll just offer that "psychic abilities" would make humans not human!

Well, that part I don't agree with. There are a variety of ways to be human, and there are humans who have abilities that most humans lack -- perfect pitch, synesthesia, eidetic memory, savant calculation skills, prehensile toes, etc. You can easily go to some very ugly places if you start defining humanity based on a restrictive checklist of abilities.

The problem with psychic abilities isn't that they're "not human" -- it's that there's no evidence they're something that can actually exist at all, in humans or anything else.

As to the first part, that was not at all my line of thought (of course there are many ways to be human - I did not mean to imply otherwise), and I don't think with psi powers that we're talking about those things. Psi powers land us in a very different realm much closer to fantasy, which is indeed not my cup of tea. If you give human beings those kinds of powers, then you're changing physical/objective reality entirely too much for my taste - that's what I meant to convey (which is what I think you're saying when you say there's no evidence that those powers can exist - that's exactly right). And it opens up all kinds of problems, not the least of which would be incorporating those powers logically and consistently within a narrative. How people fundamentally behave on a very basic level would totally change, and so to me all that would have to be taken into consideration, and at the end of the day, I say, why bother? We're outside of what is relatable too far.

Which is why I prefer science fiction as opposed to science-fantasy, I guess, and why I agree with a perspective like Sagan's when he wrote Contact.

Now, a character like Q is problematic for me, but I kind of suspend reality with a character like that, and say, "Okay, it's Q." I also see symbolic value in a character like that - like, what he's doing appears magical, but it's hinting at a potential that living beings might have.

 

[Poltargyst]

And I still don't see the problem. As a writer, you can come up with a good science-based rationale for the existence of psychic abilities, and you can create the rules under which they operate. Make those rules as tight as you want so psychic abilities don't take over your story. There's handwaving in scientifically explaining psychic abilities. I think there's still handwaving in explaining transporters and warp drives. As long as everything is internally consistent, I don't have a problem with it.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

And I still don't see the problem. As a writer, you can come up with a good science-based rationale for the existence of psychic abilities, and you can create the rules under which they operate. Make those rules as tight as you want so psychic abilities don't take over your story. There's handwaving in scientifically explaining psychic abilities. I think there's still handwaving in explaining transporters and warp drives. As long as everything is internally consistent, I don't have a problem with it.

It's worth noting that in "Where No Man...," the psychic abilities in humans were posited as being "always quite limited." The activation of god-like powers happened as a result of exposure to the barrier, which was composed a kind of energy unknown to Spock. The only relevance that the "esper capacity" had to the story was in providing an explanation for limiting who got "mutated." Other than that, it was irrelevant.

Personally, I rank the second pilot among the best of TOS.

 

[Christopher]

And I still don't see the problem. As a writer, you can come up with a good science-based rationale for the existence of psychic abilities, and you can create the rules under which they operate. Make those rules as tight as you want so psychic abilities don't take over your story.

Yes, in theory, you can. The problem, though, is that most writers don't. Like I said, all too often they just invoke the word "psychic" or "psionic" as if it were the end of the discussion, as if it just automatically made anything possible (including profound violations of physical laws), and there's no explanation of what it actually means on a physical level.

Back in college in the '90s, I had a friend who had ambitions of getting in on the independent comics craze, and I got drawn into developing a superhero universe with him (although it turned out he was all talk and no commitment). Since his universe included psi powers, I put some thought into coming up with a physical basis for psionics, and I actually came up with a fairly logical-sounding model starting with existing particle physics and positing a new class of particle and a fifth fundamental force associated with it -- purely invented, but working as an extrapolation from known physics. I think it actually made a fair amount of sense, though I've never used it in my own original fiction, since left to my own devices I've never been that interested in psi powers. (I've written a couple of unpublished fantasy stories dealing with something similar, but there it's more of a well-structured form of magic.)

But I can't recall ever coming across an actual professional work of fiction that provided much of an explanation for what psionics was and how it worked. I think I've seen a handwave here and there about it being electromagnetic in nature, amplified brain waves or something, but it's usually treated as a black box -- it works because it works. And while sometimes there's discipline applied to its use, often it's just a cheat, an excuse to make characters capable of impossible feats without further explanation.

 

[Timo]

But that goes back to Roddenberry's "the Sheriff is not obligated to explain to the audience how his Colt works" adage. Sure, in writing a book that needs thickness (that is, thickness of milieu and atmosphere), you can include the explanation. But television drama doesn't require such things, as they come with the territory: the visual nature of the medium already creates more milieu than ten thousand explanatory words could.

There's no way for Star Trek transporters or warp drive to work, in terms of yesterday's physics or today's physics - the closest we get is analogous to claiming that the telephone principle "explains" or "allows for" telepathy. Some writers of text insert convoluted pseudoscience in order to "justify" these technologies; writers of television drama don't, apart from inventing drama-furthering rules and limitations that basically never stem from plausible pseudoscience and really do not need to.

Wholly apart from that, why should psychic powers be anything special? Magicians do that stuff all the time, quite convincingly, establishing that it really isn't that big a deal as such. Science and technology and well-rehearsed stage presence combined can already easily levitate objects or see through walls or predict the unpredictable. Why should we make things difficult for everybody and assume that the telepaths and telekinetics of fiction are "not cheating"? We don't fire meteorologists because their predictions are not based on the reading of intestines of sacrificial animals any longer, i.e. because they now cheat with dirty tricks unworthy of a true seer.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

Would you be fine with human espers if the explanation given was them being genetically engineered?

*Maybe*. But only if the esper powers honestly followed from things we know we can do now - sensitivity to being watched, subconsciouses that pick up on details and jump to conclusions and let us know things we don't "know", etc. OR, if they involved mixing in genetic material derived from those other alien evolutionary tracks I mentioned - in which case they wouldn't be purely human.

I guess I am more forgiving towards telepathy and other mental powers because I am primarily a fantasy fan .
To me, personally, it is not so important if "this would work in the real word according to our scientific understanding" but rather "is it properly explained and consistent within the terms of the fictional universe" (which still doesn't apply to ST telepathy most of the time)

So where I completely agree with you and Christopher is that the biggest problem with telepathy in Star Trek is that it is never defined properly. Troi could sense things from as far away as a planet's orbit, which is simply ridiculous.

Finding a way to portray "psionic" abilities realistic would be a key. However with shoddy telepathy it is (to me) mute whether the user is human, alien or elf. Same with well defined psionic powers.

I like Christopher's suggestions of pheromones and infrared vision. I actually think the infrared vision was used for Troi in a manga I once riffled through at a Borders Bookstorel where on a planet she could warn the others of atmospheric changes just by squinting at the sky (without a tricorder).
Though he only way to give that to a human would be through in Star Trek would be through mechanical implants or grafts from aliens. Both of which would likely to be considered "off limits" in Star Trek.

And yes telepathy should not be at a workaround for translation, especially considering how chaotic minds are, a telepath would have to highly skilled to sort through the storm of pictures, emotions and "words" that make up our mind at any moment.

Since memories are chemical signatures in our brains, anybody who can read those signatures can read those memories. Further, it is possible to interpret electrical impulses in the brain and convert them into words with a reasonable amount of success. However, it is necessary to log which areas of an individuals brain light up when thinking about those objects and concepts beforehand i.e. a personal dictionary. It's hard to see how a telepath could translate those signals particularly in different species but they certainly would not hear words and you would expect them to have to be in the room to be sensitive to electro-chemical signals. In that respect, Miranda's vague notion of somebody thinking about murder seems a more nebulous and realistic form of telepathy and Jean Grey attempting to read chemical signatures on Logan's brain with only flashes of success would be due to the sheer number of chemical signatures to choose from with an amnesiac. Conversely, Talia Winter's tactic of mentioning a subject and then reading the area of electrical activity when the subject's brain lights up as they think of that subject is more logical.

I very much prefer B5 telepaths to Star Trek because B5 gave them limitations and a code of conduct. Betazoids are a terrible concept for an alien species.

Miranda Jones was pretty cool actually. Certainly a character that would have been cool as a regular.

 

[Orphalesion]

[
Since memories are chemical signatures in our brains, anybody who can read those signatures can read those memories. Further, it is possible to interpret electrical impulses in the brain and convert them into words with a reasonable amount of success. However, it is necessary to log which areas of an individuals brain light up when thinking about those objects and concepts beforehand i.e. a personal dictionary. It's hard to see how a telepath could translate those signals particularly in different species but they certainly would not hear words and you would expect them to have to be in the room to be sensitive to electro-chemical signals. In that respect, Miranda's vague notion of somebody thinking about murder seems a more nebulous and realistic form of telepathy and Jean Grey attempting to read chemical signatures on Logan's brain with only flashes of success would be due to the sheer number of chemical signatures to choose from with an amnesiac. Conversely, Talia Winter's tactic of mentioning a subject and then reading the area of electrical activity when the subject's brain lights up as they think of that subject is more logical.

I very much prefer B5 telepaths to Star Trek because B5 gave them limitations and a code of conduct. Betazoids are a terrible concept for an alien species.

Miranda Jones was pretty cool actually. Certainly a character that would have been cool as a regular.

Ah see that's what I'm talking about! Yeah the B5 telepaths were simply awesome.

And yes Betazoids were terrible, one of the worst parts was that, despite their telepathic powers they were so....completely and utterly human. As a species in which each member is telepathic they should have had this wholly different and alien type of society, somewhat closer to the Borg perhaps.

Weren't human espers in "where no man has gone before" limited to stronger intuition and precognitive dreams? I seem to remember Kirk asks about a whole bunch of other supposedly psionic powers "seeing through solid walls, starting fires with their minds" only for Dehner to dismiss that.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

This conversation reminds me both of the explanation for the universal translator given in "Metamorphosis":

(Spock is working on the Universal Translator. It is basically a metal tube nearly a foot long, that can be held in the hand.)
COCHRANE: What's the theory behind this device?
KIRK: There are certain universal ideas and concepts common to all intelligent life. This device instantaneously compares the frequency of brainwave patterns, selects those ideas and concepts it recognises, and then provides the necessary grammar.
SPOCK: Then it translates its findings into English.

... and of the description of the hook-up to help Spock mind-meld with the Cloud in "One of Our Planets Is Missing":

SPOCK: It would require physical contact, which is impossible, Captain. But I may be able to reach out with my mind. If we focus our sensors onto the cloud's synaptic electrical impulses, the input could be routed to the ship's computer for analysis into thought.
UHURA: I can link in the universal translator and put it on the audio system from here.

 

[Starborn Dragon]

[
Since memories are chemical signatures in our brains, anybody who can read those signatures can read those memories. Further, it is possible to interpret electrical impulses in the brain and convert them into words with a reasonable amount of success. However, it is necessary to log which areas of an individuals brain light up when thinking about those objects and concepts beforehand i.e. a personal dictionary. It's hard to see how a telepath could translate those signals particularly in different species but they certainly would not hear words and you would expect them to have to be in the room to be sensitive to electro-chemical signals. In that respect, Miranda's vague notion of somebody thinking about murder seems a more nebulous and realistic form of telepathy and Jean Grey attempting to read chemical signatures on Logan's brain with only flashes of success would be due to the sheer number of chemical signatures to choose from with an amnesiac. Conversely, Talia Winter's tactic of mentioning a subject and then reading the area of electrical activity when the subject's brain lights up as they think of that subject is more logical.

I very much prefer B5 telepaths to Star Trek because B5 gave them limitations and a code of conduct. Betazoids are a terrible concept for an alien species.

Miranda Jones was pretty cool actually. Certainly a character that would have been cool as a regular.

Ah see that's what I'm talking about! Yeah the B5 telepaths were simply awesome.

And yes Betazoids were terrible, one of the worst parts was that, despite their telepathic powers they were so....completely and utterly human. As a species in which each member is telepathic they should have had this wholly different and alien type of society, somewhat closer to the Borg perhaps.

Weren't human espers in "where no man has gone before" limited to stronger intuition and precognitive dreams? I seem to remember Kirk asks about a whole bunch of other supposedly psionic powers "seeing through solid walls, starting fires with their minds" only for Dehner to dismiss that.

I don't remember that. I fully remember them developing what basically amounts to some very powerful telekinesis, and their power was growing. The power turned at least Gary Mitchell into a monster, but I'm not so sure about Dehner.

Spock also ad some boo koo telepathic powers when he felt the deaths of those Vulcans from who knows how many light years away, and when he sensed his home planet being destroyed in star Trek,

Perhaps this is what the Q were so concerned about?

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Then what is it that keeps the Qs from doing things worse than Q ever did?

And then there's Guinan, who seems to know that they have some sort of weakness and can fully defend herself against it.

 

[Christopher]

Since memories are chemical signatures in our brains, anybody who can read those signatures can read those memories. Further, it is possible to interpret electrical impulses in the brain and convert them into words with a reasonable amount of success.

Maybe, but the question is, how does a human being do that kind of "reading?" The human sensorium is not equipped to detect electrical impulses in anything. If some kind of mutant did somehow have a new electrical sense, why would it only work on other people's brains instead of, say, electric wiring in a building? How could they sense something as subtle and low-energy as the electrical activity in another person's brain without the signals being swamped by all the environmental EM fields around them?

In practice, reading the activity of another person's brain requires surrounding the head with a sensor array that's stationary relative to the brain, so that it isn't confused by movement. Anyone who's ever had a CT or MRI scan of their brain knows that you have to hold absolutely still or the readings are useless. Taking detailed readings of the fine, neuron-level activity in another person's brain, from a distance, while they're moving, is effectively impossible. If nothing else, it would require an enormous antenna to take readings of such precision from that kind of distance -- just as you need a really large telescope to magnify the images of distant stars or planets sufficiently to make out any level of detail. It's the same physical principle. It just wouldn't work. (Not unless, maybe, you had a number of different telepaths spread out at some distance around the subject with their brains linked in an interferometric array.)

I very much prefer B5 telepaths to Star Trek because B5 gave them limitations and a code of conduct.

What limitations? When Jason Ironheart unleashed his full powers, it was full-on god-level reality-smashing stuff. That's my main example for how B5 used psi powers as an excuse for doing magic and ignoring the laws of physics. He even turned into "a being of pure energy," which is absolute gibberish, as I discussed earlier.

Betazoids are a terrible concept for an alien species.

No more so than Vulcans, surely. Or Talosians, or Thasians, or Medusans, or Deltans. (Riker and Troi were basically Decker and Ilia, take 2.)

 

[Pauln6]

Since memories are chemical signatures in our brains, anybody who can read those signatures can read those memories. Further, it is possible to interpret electrical impulses in the brain and convert them into words with a reasonable amount of success.

Maybe, but the question is, how does a human being do that kind of "reading?" The human sensorium is not equipped to detect electrical impulses in anything. If some kind of mutant did somehow have a new electrical sense, why would it only work on other people's brains instead of, say, electric wiring in a building? How could they sense something as subtle and low-energy as the electrical activity in another person's brain without the signals being swamped by all the environmental EM fields around them?

In practice, reading the activity of another person's brain requires surrounding the head with a sensor array that's stationary relative to the brain, so that it isn't confused by movement. Anyone who's ever had a CT or MRI scan of their brain knows that you have to hold absolutely still or the readings are useless. Taking detailed readings of the fine, neuron-level activity in another person's brain, from a distance, while they're moving, is effectively impossible. If nothing else, it would require an enormous antenna to take readings of such precision from that kind of distance -- just as you need a really large telescope to magnify the images of distant stars or planets sufficiently to make out any level of detail. It's the same physical principle. It just wouldn't work. (Not unless, maybe, you had a number of different telepaths spread out at some distance around the subject with their brains linked in an interferometric array.)

I very much prefer B5 telepaths to Star Trek because B5 gave them limitations and a code of conduct.

What limitations? When Jason Ironheart unleashed his full powers, it was full-on god-level reality-smashing stuff. That's my main example for how B5 used psi powers as an excuse for doing magic and ignoring the laws of physics. He even turned into "a being of pure energy," which is absolute gibberish, as I discussed earlier.

Betazoids are a terrible concept for an alien species.

No more so than Vulcans, surely. Or Talosians, or Thasians, or Medusans, or Deltans. (Riker and Troi were basically Decker and Ilia, take 2.)

Very valid points. I suppose in the same way that some birds can detect magnetic field lines, telepathic beings might have a region of the brain that is sensitive to certain brainwave frequencies. Spock uses touch much like medics use electrodes so I can see a certain amount of logic there. I would think empaths would be very sensitive to pheromones so they'd have a region of the brain developed to absorb and process large amounts of scent related data. But this takes us back to the issue that one might be adept at reading one's own species but it is more of a stretch to assume that reading another species is so easy or even possible without prior exposure and training to give you a baseline.

It is also true that UTs are essentially telepathic devices. It isn't clear why they don't broadcast people's internal monologues. We also have Klingon mind sifters.

I've never been a fan of super-powerful beings like Q or Ironheart so when I talk about any love for B5 telepaths, I'm talking about Lyta, Talia, or, at a stretch, Bester. A P5 is a workable character IMO. A P10+ is dodgier.

I think the other aliens you mention at least have some character. I wanted to learn more about Deltans, their culture, and their abilities. The Talosians were awesome fun.

In 7 years there was minimal effort to develop any betazoid culture that wasn't linked to plot device telepathy. Part of that was probably due to the inherent limitations of Troi's character. Initially, I thought she was Councillor Troi - i.e. an ambassador, and I expected her to take the lead in negotiations but she was very much neutered to allow Picard to grandstand in that role. Sometimes they left her out of stories altogether because she would have busted the plot wide open with her intrusive constant empathic mind reading. The issue with Troi is probably that she's always 'on', she has no compunctions about invading other people's emotional privacy, and her abilities work on all but a rare few species. At least Talia was always on but struggled to be off, had to keep a tight reign on her abilities to remain sane, and had a strong moral and legal code that prevented her from tramping all over other people's private thoughts.

 

[Orphalesion]

I don't remember that. I fully remember them developing what basically amounts to some very powerful telekinesis, and their power was growing. The power turned at least Gary Mitchell into a monster, but I'm not so sure about Dehner.

I looked up the transcript. It was Spock not Kirk:

DEHNER: Espers are simply people with flashes of insight.
SPOCK: Are there not also those who seem to see through solid objects, cause fires to start spontaneously?
DEHNER: There's nothing about it that could possibly make a person dangerous.
SPOCK: Doctor Dehner is speaking of normal ESP power.
DEHNER: Perhaps you know of another kind?
KIRK: Do we know for sure, Doctor, that there isn't another kind?

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/2.htm

No more so than Vulcans, surely. Or Talosians, or Thasians, or Medusans, or Deltans. (Riker and Troi were basically Decker and Ilia, take 2.)

In my opinion Betazods are an idea with worse execution than, say Vulcans and Medusans, because, as I said before their species-wide, constant, extremely powerful telepathy seems to leave no mark on their physiology, psychology or society. Why do they still have a spoken language for one?
You are a creative person, so I am sure it is easy for you to imagine how alien a mindset and culture that is in constant telepathic rapport with everything around it should be.
One of the only snippets in that direction we get is Betazoids not liking large animals out of fear of getting lost in the animal's more primitive mind.

Again, not everybody agrees that, even in SciFi, a concept must necessarily be backed up by real world knowledge. I do how ever think that a fictional universe should make internal sense.