From: al@calsci.UUCP (Al Petterson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Psionics
Keywords: kneejerk psi
Date: 29 Jul 92 03:42:12 GMT
Reply-To: al%calsci@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com (Al Petterson)
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Organization: California Scientific Software
News-Software: FSUUCP 1.1 Release 5

In article <13785@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca writes:

>al@calsci (Me) writes:
>>(you write):
>>> Is psionics part of the SF genre, or is it mistakenly considered SF rather
>>> than fantasy by people who have little or no science knowledge?
>>
>> If you think you can roll that past Niven, Brin, and Asimov, go right ahead
>> and try.
>
>Maybe they write what those (scientifically ignorant) readers want.

Niven and Brin???  Right.  If you *were* right, it wouldn't be SF according
to your definition ((**) below).  My challenge to you was to defend the
assertion that psi isn't part of the SF genre to three of the authors who
have contributed significantly to the definition of the genre and who use
psi liberally in their stories.

I'll point out that both Brin and Niven power their FTL drives with psi.
And for good reason.  Keep reading.

>> Can you name a story in which FTL appears and where if you removed FTL
>> *only* the story wouldn't be SF?
>
>You're using the wrong analogy.  The analogy to removing FTL would be removing
>telekinesis (while retaining other psionic elements).

Wrong.  The analogy to FTL is there for a specific and valid reason: psi and
FTL-plus-causality fall into the same category of implausibility.

Let me quote from your next article, <13786@mindlink.bc.ca>...
>mar@physics.su.OZ.AU (David Mar) writes:
>> In my game, psionics _does_ exist because of another basic force in the
>> universe. I don't have a detailed explanation of exactly what that force is
>> or how it interacts with other things...
>
>Doesn't that make it fantasy, rather than science fiction?

No.  It makes it a role-playing game where the GM sometimes wings it.  It
has nothing to do with genre.

>I think the general consensus is that science fiction is the extrapolation
>of an actual or imagined science or technology on society.

(**) First of all, this is the reference to "your definition of science
fiction" above.  I would more consider this the definition of "hard SF"
only.

Second, note *imagined*.  What's wrong with psi as an "imagined science"?
And the extrapolation can be improvised as required in an RPG.

>If you don't have an explanation for the
>science (psionics), then how can you extrapolate properly from it?

How do you extrapolate the existence of FTL without the existence of time
travel?  By rejecting general relativity?  Then what happens when you
accelerate STL?  Does it still hold otherwise?  Does quantum mechanics still
hold?  Eat the peanut.  I dare you.  :-) (See (***) below.)

Back to the first article:
>> Psi is central to all of the following SF stories, [list].  Do you claim all
>> these stories violate genre by including psi?
>
>No, I didn't claim that including psionics made the story non-SF.  I claimed
>that including psionics didn't make an otherwise non-SF story suddenly SF.

It certainly removes it from most other genres...  into some sort of
speculative fiction, whether fantasy, horror, soft SF, or hard SF.  The
inclusion of <X> for any specific <X> does not define the story's genre,
though it may eliminate it from certain genres.  I don't think that's what
we're arguing about.  Except that the inclusion of psi does not eliminate a
story from classification as hard SF.

(I left out of my list at least three rather influential and impressive
works, btw: Herbert's _Dune_, Gerrold's _Chtorr_, and of course Heinlein's
_Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land_.  I bring it up mostly because I'm embarrassed
I forgot them.)

>If you want your SF rpg to model life in a near-future solar system, you don't
>include rules for cheap FTL drives... [more reasonable examples of not
>violating genre]

Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me?  Sounds suspiciously like what I
was saying about specific and general systems.

>Legacy is not designed to support psionics...

Oh.  I didn't know this thread was about Legacy.  I've never heard of it.
I'll shut up after this post.

But first, to your second post again...

>Does your science of psionics include examples of this "basic force" in
>[list of unanticipated examples]?

A good GM will answer questions by making it up on the fly if he hasn't
thought of it ahead of time.  This is true in all rpgs of all genres when
the PCs get to any area of any science or force the GM doesn't have the
background to know about offhand.  That doesn't make the game non-SF.
Again, it's genre-irrelevant.

>I'm just arguing that if you don't operate from an
>"extrapolation from a set of scientific facts", then your psionics rules would
>be by definition be fantasy rather than SF.

But since the story is made up in part as it goes along (if this isn't true
at least in the aspect of the characters' reactions to each other it's
something very different from a role-playing game) the set of scientific
facts can be implicit rather than explicit.

Now my real points.

(1) Because there is a widespread and essentially unjustified sentiment
among otherwise nominally rational people that psi exists in the consensus
reality, there is a tendency among nominally more rational people to jerk
their knees when the topic of psi is mentioned.  I have a suspicion your
statements regarding psi not belonging in the hallowed "SF genre" have this
as their source.

It is important to differentiate between what is part of consensus reality
and what is not, and arguably also important to differentiate between what
is plausible given current scientific theory and what is not, but I consider
this difference orthogonal to the distinction between SF and fantasy.

(2) To put more directly what I've been dancing around regarding FTL and
time travel: if the goal is to extrapolate from current scientific theory,
FTL and causality are mutually exclusive.  Further, at least in terms of
what theoretically could be built, causality is currently losing this
struggle.

Yet the existence of FTL and the nonexistence of time travel is a staple of
hard SF.  Similarly the existence of psi is a staple of hard SF despite
strong current evidence from current scientific understanding that it
doesn't exist.

If I make the following statement: "General relativity is nominally correct;
FTL exists;  yet time travel does not," I can still build a hard SF story or
RPG from this premise.  The hard SF comes in the extrapolation of the
existence and use of FTL on humanity and the universe and does not depend on
the plausibility of the axioms.

Similarly, "The universe has an additional fundamental force, 'psi', which
behaves more or less thus: <x> (this list is incomplete and will be added to
as we see fit," is still a perfectly good basis for a hard SF storyline.
Again, the hard SF comes in the extrapolation of the existence and use of
psi on humanity and the universe.

>Actually, I'm just arguing for entertainment value.  >:-)
(3) Me too.  >*-) It's hard to see any earth-shattering consequences from
this discussion.  But it's sure fun, ain't it?  (Hey!  Everybody else out
there!  You entertained?  Or bored?  No, I don't really want to know.  :-)

(***) The reference is to a quote (maybe Niven?): "Trying to change one law
of physics is like trying to eat one peanut."

Al Petterson (al%calsci@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com)
---
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