"guess the emotion" game. Empathy or telepathy?

[TC]

I was in a practice session with a couple of other people where we were "sending" emotions. For example, I would send the feeling of happiness and the receiver would receive that of which I sent and make their statement based on what they received. Ie: This is another form of "Guess the Fruit". Someone who was practicing with us deemed this empathy. But after some discussion, it was come upon that this was not empathy, but instead it was telepathy. The reason being we were not "reading" one's current true emotion or feeling, but one that they had visualized or made in their head and then deliberately sent.

So in truth, some definitions of empathy such as the simplest version: "the receiving of one's emotions or feelings" would deem this empathy. But after considering exactly what we were doing, we felt it wasn't empathy at all, but instead telepathy.

Any ideas? Comments? Corrections? Or the now new approach of debate?

~TC (looks around for allies) hehe

[wolfdancer]

tc--Sorry I couldn't meet you in the chat yesterday. The idea of posting the results from discussion is a great one and that may have been simpler, except that my schedule got rather busy.

Anyway, back to topic:
That is an interesting scenario. I have actually played that game with some people and believe in our case that it was an exercise in empathy. We were not playing a guess what emotion I'm thinking of but rather what emotion am I feeling and projecting. This is a common distinction for me as it is an exercise done often in many acting classes (I have a BFA in theatre). If you actually alter your state of emotion for the purpose of the game, it does work as an empathic exercise. Can you see the difference? I was discussing this with DA and another friend of mine the other night and the difference between actually consciously altering your emotion and just thinking about another emotion and trying to send the emotion you are thinking about rather than having altered what you are feeling.

[Stony1205]

I think this one could fall under both telepathy and empathy depending on the circumstances.

If you're sending THE emoticon, as an image, that's sending "raw data", and I would consider it more on the telepathy side than the empathy side.

If you're sending the emotion tied to the emotion (ex both the feeling and the image itself), I would classify it as more on the side of empathy with telepathy to cover both ends.

When It comes to mental messages, I dont think you can FULLY seperate the two. You can't use one without really fully eliminating the other, and using them in tandem can make your messages even clearer.

~ Stony

[wolfdancer]

I agree that they do work much better when used together. It may take me a bit more experimentation to determine if and how much each is used. I believe we were, in the example give, using more empathy, but I can see how we may have included telepathy with it. At least on the level of "Ping, check which emotion I'm projecting." I hadn't really thought about the fact that we were doing that.

[TC]

Wolf: I agree mostly. Just one thing. You're saying that you semi change your emotion in order to send it more clearly, thereby making it empathy? In other words, if you were sending the emotion anger, you might think of something that has made you angry and then project that feeling? I'm just slightly confused on that part, and that determines whether or not I completely agree.

Stony: I agree. That's more or less what I thought, but I didn't have a very good explanation of it.

[wolfdancer]

Not semi-change, but actually changing one's emotion consciously. It is the ability to be depressed and make the concious decision to become happy, bouncy, hyper or to become angry or to become grieved or to become melancholy and uncaring or to cry or become upset or become overwhelmed. I have conciously gone from one emotion to another completely when I wanted to. Usually it was connected to something I was trying to do for class. However, there have been several times in the last year I have deliberately changed my emotion because a friend needed me to be in a good mood. For me, it takes less than a minute to completely swing my mood to something else. I prefer to keep conscious control over my emotions and do not always choose to over-ride negative feelings because they ought to be expressed or one may develop psychological problems. However, you can develop the ability to fully change what you are feeling on short notice (especially if in a relatively stable state of mind). Anyway, I'm babbling and beating around the bush. Not sure I'm getting anything effectively across. Comments?

~Wolf

[ryakoth]

i catagorize it as neither empathy or telepathy, but as sending charged energy, a psiball with the feel of what you thought about feeling

[The Devil's Advocate]

As a very strong empath, Ryakoth, I'd have to completely dissagree with you. This is an excercise I have done in the past. At the time I had no skill with telepathy at all, and was still projecting and recieving the appropriate emotion. Yes it can be an excercise in telepathy or one in empathy... however saying it is neither without substantiation is rather foolhardy, and saying it must have elements of both is rather premature.

~The Devil's Advocate

[wolfdancer]

I don't know that it /must/ have elements of both, just that my sendings likely had simple tp messages along with the emotion being projected. I think that is probably true in many cases where the participants have skill in both, especially if one of them is a natural ability. In that case, they are likely to use it without thinking about it. Even if you were doing a tp exercise, there is the chance of sending how you are feeling along with whatever you are supposed to be projecting. It is one of the 'challenges' we must face when trying to isolate a skill.

[lunin]

I think it could be read either way, even with the emotional conversion (unless they did so without thinking, but that would kind of ruin the point of the exercise). A good way to test it would be to project the emotion but have the sender shield themselves from telepathy, though that may be difficult. I also am curious with this changing of emotion whether visual cues are suppressed, or if the person receiving is looking in another direction. Just a thought.

[wolfdancer]

If you are waiting to accept a projection or scan and not recieving anything until they say to, then the thought of changing emotion and what they are changing it to would already be past. Now if they are thinking about how to describe what they are feeling the issue still exists, but if they are just feeling and waiting for confirmation that you think you have picked up on what it is, I don't think it would be as big of a problem

We played it over a long distance of many miles so physical cues were null.

The shielding is a good idea for isolating skills. I hadn't thought about that, yet. I may have to give that a try next time I play.


~Wolf

[TC]

Wolf: Thanks, you cleared that up for me. I think taht because you consciously changed your emotion and then projected it, then it has an element of empathy in it. But because you actually had to purposely project the emotion in order for your practice partner(s) to receive it, a vital element of telepathy is still there. I wouldn't be prepared to back this up 100%, but because you were projecting your emotion, I would still consider this an act of telepathy ie: broadcasting or pinging, rather than empathy. Also, method might also play a part in whether this would be strictly defined or if it is sort of a grey line type thing.

To make things short: I'd consider empathy acting "behind the scenes" while telepathy is actually doing the action of projecting the emotion.

Ryakoth: I'd also have to disagree. Although you can program your construct to read with an emotion, I don't believe that it works at all in this case. Wolf was literally characterizing a chosen emotion and projecting it. No constructs involved in that. With my case, we were sending an emotion through "raw material" which I deemed complete telepathy because we were not bringing the chosen emotion into our character.

[The Devil's Advocate]

I would disagree, TC. A decision to project an emotion does not indicate that you are actually projecting a THOUGHT with the emotion. Let me give you an example. I was in a class room. Roughly 35 other students. 30 of whom were rather irate privates. I was overloading. I spent nearly 10 min projecting the concept, telepathically "SHUT UP" to zero effect. When I managed to make the decision to actually project an emotion, that was ALL I projected. Frankly by that point I was overloaded to the point that was all I was CAPABLE of projecting. And CALM not the word calm, not the concept calm, but the emotion calm WORKED. On a side note it had the side effect of calming me down as well. I was at a state of overload I was not capable of the precision /I/ require to properly project telepathy. This was long enough ago, as far as my dabbling with telepathy went, that I was not effective at projecting it at all... even to a practiced telepath.

There have been many times I have projected, empathically enough to rattle the cages of everyone in my vicinity... my roommates usually steer clear of me when I’m doing that because it usually means I’ve completely lost my temper at something. It is a markedly stronger projection than just general anger (even of an explosive temper) from someone who is NOT Empathic (just ask Wolf she's been on the recieving end of a few of those). It is quite possible to project Empathy COMPLETELY independently of Telepathy. I do it all the time.

~The Devil’s Advocate

[TC]

I'm finding this tough because I don't want to word it wrong, especially in Debate and Discussion.

DA, when you wish to consciously project an emotion, how do you go about doing this? What is your method? Just a brief explanation.

As I said in my last post, the answer to that will ultimately determine whether I have any more to say.

[The Devil's Advocate]

There is no brief explanation at this juncture. You've GOTTEN the brief explanation, at this point it devolves to explaining the color red to a man who's never seen anything in his life.

If you ask my roommate she describes my projections, especially when I loose my temper or am simply broadcasting something I am feeling strongly as "being in the same room as a lightning bolt." It is something you simply DO. Do you sit there and consciously think "Now I extend this joint utilizing this muscle group to a 180 angle on the horizontal plain and a 20 degree angle on the vertical plain and position each finger maneuvering each muscle thusly to exert precisely X amount of friction on the surface of this container, being careful not to exceed Y Netwons of force lest I break it and cut my hand..." As you pick up a glass to take a drink of water? No. As a child you learn that your hands move. You learn that you can open and close your fingers and you learn to pick things up. You learn that if you hold too hard some things go squash. You don't think, consciously about the exact force your exerting in terms of (KG*m)/s^2. You want the glass of milk. You pick up the glass of milk. You want or decide to project an emotion and you do it. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

To ‘pick’ an emotion: It is not “I want to project Calm” it just /is/ calm. Just as a lightning bolt or strong wind is not the rain, none of them are the storm. The wind does not directly impact the lightning bolt. Though there can be lightning bolts and wind that are interrelated (concussion blasts from lightning strikes for example). So are telepathy and empathy related within the larger context of psionics.

~The Devil’s Advocate