Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!quint@RU-BLUE.ARPA From: quint@RU-BLUE.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Psychics in Heinlein Message-ID: <12616@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Mon, 23-Apr-84 20:16:38 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12616 Posted: Mon Apr 23 20:16:38 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 28-Apr-84 10:38:34 EST Lines: 68 From: Anne Marie Quint [/amqueue] Pax! Uncle! I surrender! I must thank Martin Minow and Andrew Klossner for setting my memory straight as to Heinlein's use of psychics. Among those stories mentioned, that I freely admit myself wrong about, were: Gulf If This Goes On... Methuselah's Children Time Enough For Love Beyond This Horizon Lost Legacy Others mentioned that I would argue about, in no particular order: I Will Fear No Evil: There were two explanations given for the 'communication' between Johann and Eunice: a) Johann is nuts, bonkers, around the bend and imagining it all and b) in some way Eunice is present in all of her body and removing the brain has not removed her personality. This second one seems to be a spinoff of the fact that planaria remember all over themselves. In either case, no psychic abilities are brought out. Stranger in a Strange Land: it is specifically stated that Michael's abilities are the result of knowing more about the fabric of spacetime and the nature of reality, and that this knowledge is teachable once one learns the language. ( I would like to point out that most sciences have their 'own language' which must be learned before one can do anything in that science....it took me about a year to be able to understand 90% of what my hacker friends were talking about). I believe at some point Mike says that if someone prefers to believe that what is being done is psychic, that are welcome to do so, but that they would be wrong. Waldo/Magic, Inc: Waldo draws power and energy from a pathway to another universe; magic is magic, not psychic powers ( I will admit that the difference may be negligible here, but I am not an authority on magic). This one may be debatable. Communicate With Dead in Number of the Beast: If you are referring to the scene where Jake 'talks' to his wife, I think that is stretching it. The scientific method is to create a model of the problem and to manipulate. This can be done with people too; I see no reason to think that Jake is talking to this dead wife's spirit when it is more possible for him to be talking to a mental image. It is a fact that people who are long married can 'predict' each other to that extent. And an ideal model would not have the failing of dying. Everyone has at some point gone through a decision making process where one says "What would so and so do in this situation?" This sounds lots like that. Group Mind In Methuselah's Children: The essence of a mind is contact between all the nerve cells; for all the book says, each body could be an electro-magnetic transceiver on some odd band. I haven't heard of radio waves being classed as extra-sensory.... In all of the above cases, the explanation was either given or implied somehow in the structure of the book (at least to me). I think that application of Occam's Razor finds explanations other that psychic powers for the books I dispute, and have given what I come up with. I'm sorry I have to answer to the digest, but I cannot mail directly out to the net. I hope no one is too bored.... have fun /amqueue -------