[dogscoff]

An interesting problem of SciFi is whether 'non-psychic' races have any ability to control access to their thoughts or if being 'psychic' is something completely outside normal mental abilities and 'non-psychics' are completely helpless in the 'psychic' realm. Different authors decide on different solutions. I see you have decided that normal minds can discipline themselves somehow or other and achieve some power to control access to their thoughts. If this is so, can they also learn to 'reach out' to other minds?

You see the paradox I am leading up to? If 'normal' minds can resist being read then they have the ability to control those same 'thought emanations' that psychics use for distance communication. So why would there be any genetic barriers to being completely psychic? Wouldn't training up to 'full abilities' necessarily be possible?

It's an interesting point. I have been planning to to close Cane off for a while now, mainly for the purposes of plot and character development. I figured that if the unjoined Cappans can do it, then so can humans.

To be honest the whole thing is a bit of a sci-fi cop out anyway as far as I'm concerned, since (a) the idea of all these races being so compatible/ similar is pretty absurd anyway and (b) I don't usually like psychic stuff in sci-fi. I think the suspension of disbelief necessary to believe in psychic powers in a technological setting is pushing the envelope a little too far. Of course hat begs the question "why use a psychic race in O&C then", but the simple answer is that when i wrote the first chapter of this story and included a Cue Cappan I had no idea that there would be a chapter 2.

But I digress... yeah. If there is such a thing as psychic powers/ telepathy (I'm doubtful), then I think the physics of it would be a far more complex and acute mechanism than just picking up the very faint and vague waves radiating from the brain.

If you believe that the mind is greater than (and even capable of existing outside of) the brain it resides in, then that would open up all kinds of possibilities for telepathy, remote viewing and all that mumbo jumbo.

Of course, we're edging into the spiritual realm here, but that's a whole other argument. Personally I don't necessarily think that you have to believe in any kind of supernatural stuff/ God/ spirit world to accept the possibility of the mind being beyond "ordinary" physics.

Man, if Fyron reads this thread he's gonna toast me for that Last remark=-)

To sum all that up, For the purposes of the scoffoverse we'll just say that psychic races are psychic, and the best anyone else can do is to learn to block them. I could try to explain it all with technobabble, but let's just not and pretend I did=-)

[ March 11, 2003, 16:52: Message edited by: dogscoff ]