telepathy with the very young
- Thread starter Captrek
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What kind of information could they obtain from infants other than "I'm hungry", or "I need to take a crap"? 
I'm sure there's even less information available from a fetus.
I'm sure there's even less information available from a fetus.
Green Shirt said:
"Boy, it sure is dark in here."
Anyway, if the telepath still relies on linguistic cognition, then there is not much useful information they can glean from a mind that operates pre-linguistically. It would, I feel, be like trying to surf the Internet when all you've got is a half-coded BIOS.
Vulcans seem to be better at sussing out the internal rules that govern computation in any given mind than any other telepathic species. Spock successfully and even easily established the protocols for information transfer with several creatures who were not even in our sense of the word biological--Kollos, Mama Horta and V'Ger spring to mind. Given this ability, presumably a Vulcan could easily establish meaningful telepathic contact with one of their own young, or even a human infant. As pointed out by Green Shirt, the usefulness of this for the mind-melder is questionable, although for the mind-meldee it could be very instructional.
So, for a Vulcan or Medusan (who also seem to have that interpretive flexibility), yes, telepathy with an infant appears possible. For Betazoids (who appear limited to wireless and soundless verbalizations for conveying concrete meaning) it appears that it is not. Ocampa are too silly to actually exist, of course, so in their case it's a null question.
As an infant, Tam Elbrun ("Tin Man") could communicate telepathically with adults. This is why he was such a fucked-up pain in the ass.
I hope there are no Scientologists still around in Trek Time. 
This sort of relates to whether the Universal Translator can understand baby talk or the language of animals better than we currently do...
I'm sure there are exotic branches of UFP science, and all sorts of less professional dabblers, on the issues of baby talk and dogspeak. No doubt some futuristic hippies spend months at an end listening to the wind through the UT and divining messages from it - or doing telepathy with a mollusk and trying to comprehend its worldview. For all we know, Vulcan physicists mind-meld with substances to understand their structure better...
All this would probably call for specialists and special gear, though. Standard telepaths would dedicate long study hours into learning how NOT to listen to animals, trees or other noise, and standard UTs would be tuned to filter out the wind and the goldfish.
Timo Saloniemi
I'm sure there are exotic branches of UFP science, and all sorts of less professional dabblers, on the issues of baby talk and dogspeak. No doubt some futuristic hippies spend months at an end listening to the wind through the UT and divining messages from it - or doing telepathy with a mollusk and trying to comprehend its worldview. For all we know, Vulcan physicists mind-meld with substances to understand their structure better...
All this would probably call for specialists and special gear, though. Standard telepaths would dedicate long study hours into learning how NOT to listen to animals, trees or other noise, and standard UTs would be tuned to filter out the wind and the goldfish.
Timo Saloniemi
It would be very creepy if telepaths could 'communicate' somehow with infants or fetuses. A whole new army of whatevers could be bred without anyone ever knowing. Talk about mind control/brainwashing/whatever. That would be serious shit!
What if all the boys sounded like Bruce Willis?
meh. now if they LOOKED like Bruce Willis...that would be a horse of a different color!
^ oh MAN! Thanks for reminding me~
I recall an episode where it was stated telephathic abilities begin in the teenage years. I suspect areas of hte brain that would handle and interpret such abilities, are nto formed yet in infants.
There is a telepathicly comunicating race in the book "Troublesome Minds" known as the Isitri. The Isitri are a collective mind much like the Borg, though with their own individual thoughts, feelings, etc. The whole planet of Isitri Homeworld Zero is connected through a chain of minds, so every thought, everything they see, etc. is shared. These Isitri begin their telepathic communications while they are still a fetus.
^ I don't read the novels, so i am not familiar with that race. Are they a peaceful race or more war-like?
They are very peaceful race. though on occasion a "troublesome mind" would be born that would take control of the planet and cause a war with the neighboring planet of the Odib.
You should read the novel, it's by Dave Galanter, and is very good.
There's some Trek novel whose title escapes me, where Spock is living on Earth with some hippies and at one point is holding an infant. Just from the skin contact, he has a low grade telepathic communication with the infant, and thinks how it's uncluttered mind is actually refreshing.
I like that. The uncluttered baby mind part, not the hippie part. Why was Spock living with hippies?
Infants don't need to broadcast their thoughts in order for adult telepaths to read them so I'm not sure how this applies.
Infants don't think like an adult does. Thoughts and ideas as you know them are from brains developed over time. What ever an infant broadcasts, is up to interrpetation and can likely vary from infant to infant.
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