TC
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Formerly known as Yokusa
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Post by TC on Jan 30, 2007 19:19:27 GMT -5
Alright, someone IMed me about this the other day. We talked about how many psions believe they could theoretically use telekinesis to lift anything they want. They even said that they would be able to lift themselves and fly if they only believed harder. This theory is based completely on the belief that if you completely believe in psionics and believe that you can do something, you will be able to do it.
On the other hand, we have more of a logical standpoint. Others debate that you can only do with telekinesis what you can do with your hands or body. This is based on a theory that your energy is only as strong as what your body can put into it.
Personally, I'm willing to agree with the second theory. I think it's far more logical and that the first theory has no basis, except for belief.
Questions, comments, someone who wants to debate for the other theory?
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innerfire
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Post by innerfire on Jan 30, 2007 20:28:15 GMT -5
I kinda side with the second theory but not really on the limit of your physical strength as the limit of what you can lift for several reasons:
1) Psi can effectively be channeled from all over the body into one place, meaning that even under that reasoning it would be the total force that all or most of your muscles can exert.
2) Leverage is a huge factor in lifting things, we have no clue how that would work into a force applied telekinetically.
3) The body typically does not exert anywhere near its full capacity on physical activity under normal conditions. Adrenaline can cause a human to be able to lift far more than their usual ability. Also, I read somewhere that human muscles typically only exert at 30-33% of their capcity in order to prevent injury - supposedly this is why under certain conditions such as the before example or when people are high on certain drugs why they can operate at a super human level - temporarily the safegaurds are removed so to speak.
4) Interchanging physical and psionic energy is one of my main projects, however even I have no clue how exactly they're related, whether it is the same reserve, two seperate reserves that can be converted into each other, or even none of these. Therefore judging psionic potential by your physical potential is a bad idea.
5) As well as the physical example from #3, psionic energy can temporarily be supercharged far above the normal levels. Again, even though this is one of my main projects I'm unable to determine the details of this, wether this process I'm thinking of temporarily brings forward a good portion of one's total energy on a scale far above normal, or whether a large amount of energy is rapidly metabolized from the body's physical reserves, or even whether its just drawn from the enviroment.
This is an interesting and difficult thing to debate since we have very limited data on the functionings of tk, energy manipulation/management, and the psionic energic system in general.
As a physics student however I must disagree with the first point for sure: Conservation of Energy - Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Whenever you lift something with tk or physical strength energy is expended, while belief could help one to utilize or generate more energy, there has to be a cap-out point where the body just simply cannot provide (or obtain from other sources) the necessary energy required to do what is asked of it.
In short, I believe the maximum of what one could theoretically lift with telekinesis is limited by the amount of energy that can be provided to accomplish that task.
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neveza
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Post by neveza on Jan 30, 2007 20:32:47 GMT -5
All I can say with few words to think.
If belief was the only factor, we'd have flying kids flying about.
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The Devil's Advocate
Author
Respected Member I will deflate your theories and claims with ye olde pointy stick of logic.
Est autem fides credere quod nondum vides; cuius fidei merces est videre quod credis.
Posts: 1,552
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Post by The Devil's Advocate on Jan 31, 2007 9:01:23 GMT -5
Logically all things that are real, are bounded by the limits of reality, and the rules that make anything possible, also define what it can and cannot do. To say that these rules of reality do not apply is to say that something is not real. To apply that which is not real to reality is usually the relm of fiction and sometimes philosophy.
That being said I have a few observations to make.
1) Using Psi too much causes a Psion to become tired. This is one limit. How much can we, as individuals, harness psi without surpassing our own physical and mental endurance levels. Like muscles need to build up over time, so does our skill with psionics.
2) A scan of an area reaveals a level of ambient Psi. This is not an all pervasive aura. Because there are difinitively places where Psi is NOT, we can tentatively conclude that there is a finite amount of Psi in the universe. How larger or small that amount might be is still up for debate.
3) Even at the highest point of my usage (and I can out put a great deal of energy psionically at times.) I have not actually dented the ambient by the time I had over taxed my ability to use what was there.
4) Psi seems to 'gather' around living things and psions (ie there is a higher very localized concentration of psi) I have not monitored this in myself. It is difficult to do from the 'in side' so to speak, so I do not know how my psi usage impacts that 'pool' of psi.
This leads me to believe there are 2 limiting factors: 1) our ability to utalize psi. 2) The availability of Psi energy to utalize.
For the most part I think we are still working to expand the first barrier. In some people this is a factor of belief. Belief and necessity can drastilically limit psionic capability, but usually only in the vast extreme. (That is when I was stationed at a high-stress post in a very highstress/high population area, my passive range 'cut' from its maximum down to a mile to 10 miles... please note these are imprecise measurements. I know for a fact it was smaller, but the exact dimensions are hard to determine precisely.) I do not currently know my max, as this proccess has actually repeated itself, prior to and after that time frame, until I learned to shield and my passive range started expanding again.
The greatest limiter is skill. Do we have the skill the psionic 'muscle strength' and 'muscle tone' to do what we want with it? We're trying to run psionic marathons. If we can't run a mile without getting winded we still have to build up to it.
So I would say both are, to a degree, true. It's not utterly simple, and before you can be bounded by physics, you must determine what bounds have been placed on you by skill, belief, and survival.
~The Devil's Advocate
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Post by confuded92 on Feb 5, 2007 20:17:48 GMT -5
You just forgot a little point DA... You follow the 2 theory right? So you probably never tried the 1 one . For someone who follows the second theory, there is a big possibility that he never tried the 1 one and never is going to since his BELIEF is in the 2 one. . I will not say which one I go after (theory), since I am kinda undetermined, confuded.
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TC
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Formerly known as Yokusa
Posts: 338
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Post by TC on Feb 5, 2007 23:00:50 GMT -5
Confuded? Are you suggesting that DA attempt to do daredevil stunts with only the aid of psionic abilities? That's the only way you would prove theory 1. Actually, you could attempt to lift the Sears Tower all you want, but "it aint gonna happen" as they say. You could try and jump off of the Empire State Building with only the aid of your shields to hold you up, but chances are you're going to hit the ground dead and disappointed.
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Post by Agapooka on Feb 25, 2007 18:42:10 GMT -5
My best friend's little brother once believed that he could fly when he jumped off a rather high staircase. He didn't. End of story. EDIT: To clarify, this is simply proof that belief alone is not enough. I am not in any way, shape or form saying that belief cannot possibly be a limiting reagent in the proverbial equation. Agapooka
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Post by confuded92 on Feb 26, 2007 17:45:51 GMT -5
Coul someone exapline me please wht I wrote ? I dont understand what I wrote . And it has the word DA in so I am freaked out. I think I ment to wright this somewhere else...Thanks
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Post by Agapooka on Feb 26, 2007 18:18:18 GMT -5
Reading your posts frustrates me. On second thought, they require so much concentration to read that they may be good to excercise my focus in order to hone any psionic skills that I may possess. lol
Oh yeah... I don't want to tell you what you wrote. The fact that you don't know jsut emans that I'd rather not even try - for now.
Agapooka
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TC
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Formerly known as Yokusa
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Post by TC on Feb 27, 2007 0:34:57 GMT -5
Coul someone exapline me please wht I wrote ? I dont understand what I wrote . And it has the word DA in so I am freaked out. I think I ment to wright this somewhere else...Thanks That's great, Sherlock. Anyway, back to the main discussion. In any case, agapooka, I don't see where your story comes into play at all. Firstly, it wasn't psionics based at all, and therefore cannot be evidence to back up a psionics based question. Secondly, it really isn't comparable to the question anyway. The person couldn't fly. Has the person read up on flying techniques? (not that there are any). Silly, I know, but all the same, it's not substantial enough to back up your argument. In short, that's not at all the end of the story.
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neveza
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I may be biased, but I'm usually right.
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Post by neveza on Feb 27, 2007 4:28:22 GMT -5
I don't know. I think what Agapooka said is well enough for this. Sure, they person might have not done anything psionics, but it shows that it's not all belief. You need some skill to do something regardless if you're not consciously aware of something happening. Because one isn't using psionics consciously to do so, doesn't make it not psionics-based.
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Post by Agapooka on Feb 27, 2007 7:23:22 GMT -5
Indeed. The question asked in this topic is whether or not one can accomplish things with belief alone. As I said in my post, I am not stating that belief is not important, only that it cannot be the sole factor involved. With that in mind, taking an example with someone that WAS involved with psionics would not have been a scientific way of prooving that belief alone is not sufficient, as the person would also have skill, training and background working with them.
Agapooka
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The Devil's Advocate
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Respected Member I will deflate your theories and claims with ye olde pointy stick of logic.
Est autem fides credere quod nondum vides; cuius fidei merces est videre quod credis.
Posts: 1,552
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Post by The Devil's Advocate on Feb 27, 2007 13:56:00 GMT -5
Agapooka has a point; however, so does TC. Part of the question implied a belief, specifically, in psionics. Some of the site background for this post is as follows: Some people hold that the only reason that we're not able to lift the empire state building with TK is that everyone is too preoccupied with 'reality' and simply don't believe hard enough and that people who say we need to apply physics and science and make observations are just gumming up the works and slowing things down.
This thread is much more moderate than that, but it is a argument we have had to have repeatedly, and this thread was intended to discuss that aspect of belief vs. skill and how they interact. Your example was valid in demonstraiting that belief alone may not be enough, but examples from psions are not INVALID simply because the person in question has a skill that might aid and abet belief.
The next question from your example would be: Had the boy in question had a natural flare for TK and honestly believed he could fly? Could he have managed it? Or managed more than would be 'normal' even if it wasn't true flight, simply because he believed?
If you've ever seen a 7 year old take a flight of stairs 3 at a time at a dead run when her legs are technically too short to manage 2? You know that belief /can/ have an impact even if it isn't as dramatic as some would like to have it.
~The Devil's Advocate
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TC
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Formerly known as Yokusa
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Post by TC on Feb 27, 2007 17:39:07 GMT -5
Good points DA. And people, don't get me wrong. I'm not debating one way or another. I'm just trying to point out examples for both sides.
Agapooka: Do you sort of see what I'm saying? If the example had been more psionically related, I'd be less apt to deny it's validity and relation to the question at hand.
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Post by Agapooka on Feb 27, 2007 17:54:11 GMT -5
If an individual has skill with psionics, the skill and belief could both impact the result without us knowing which factor actually impacted the result.
I see your point, TC, however, I don't see how belief in psionics SPECIFICALLY is required. DA, after all, practiced and/or experienced empathy for years while denying that she was a psion. Belief in psionics is just as relevant as belief in one's ability to accomplish something without consciously considering psionics, in this case.
The child, in this case, believed that he could fly. Instead, he fell from a reasonable height which resulted in a fracture of a limb. Psionics are a part of ourselves. It doesn't matter if we attribute it to the coined word "psionics" or to an ability that we truly believe that we have: the result speaks for itself in saying whether or not belief, in itself, is sufficient.
Agapooka
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