OOC 23

Same laws of nature and mind, different people having discovered different ways to use them?

Currently I wish Suitov had used something on the lines of "write a spell", but, well, let us ramble.

So Sylv would have understood the idea of 'writing' a spell?

Probably-mostly-the-same laws of nature, differently-evolved animals... (Baskerville: Some of them evolved into kitties?)

No, not at all, but I think it would have led to the point more quickly. :D

Wow, I posted! But it ate my en dash. Tragedy!

*gives cookie*

Testing - – —

Angelic/demonic and telepathy! And a test: - – – again: - – &emdash; again: - – —

(0:37:36) Veltzeh: from the description of the language, I'd say that Kim is proficient with that kind of thing... at least I always imagined that my telepaths would understand that
(0:38:22) Veltzeh: it sounds like a perfect no ambiguities -case :)
(0:39:32) Veltzeh: then again, for my telepaths it would be a learnable ability since they gradually learn to pick up languages and thoughts and intentions and what they mean for another person
(0:43:07) Veltzeh: well, animals are harder for my telepaths since I don't assume they have the kind of "sentient" thinking humans have... but if Baskerville can still understand things even with that language...
(0:43:16) Veltzeh: ...I suppose Kim wouldn't have that much of an issue... but I don't know.
(0:43:59) hellmutt: I guess he's a tricky case. He doesn't think much like a human, but not altogether like a dog either.
(0:44:50) Veltzeh: how exactly is that language communicated?
(0:46:52) hellmutt: Demons 'hear' the meanings of speech, but not unvocalised thoughts, through a kind of non-invasive telepathy.
(0:47:46) hellmutt: To communicate it's essentially the same thing in reverse. A sort of broadcast message that can be understood by anyone (that they've encountered so far).
(0:49:02) hellmutt: But animals with limited understanding only pick up what they can understand. A gerbil might hear "[vibration:danger!]" where I heard "He's got a gun!"
(0:50:11) Veltzeh: hmm... how much would Kim's shielding of eir mind affect others' understanding of em?
(0:51:07) hellmutt: Shielding in my psionics systems doesn't affect it because the spoken words are 'outside' the shield in some sense.
(0:51:40) hellmutt: My thinking is that there's an implicit intention to be understood when people talk. (If there wasn't, if they were just saying blah blah, a demon wouldn't understand them.)
(0:52:41) Ankewehner: But "OK, I'll switch to a language I know only one of the present people understand so that the rest don'T" doesn't affect it, right?
(0:52:53) Veltzeh: yeah. in my system, then again, spoken words and telepathy are separate (well, at least for telepaths)... at least I thought it so, but I can't be sure
(0:53:25) hellmutt: That's right. If you were really careful about speaking syllables with NO thought of meaning attached, you could be incomprehensible to a demon. But that's hard.
(0:54:05) hellmutt: Spoken word and telepathy are separate in Shade's system too.
(0:55:23) Veltzeh: I was thinking more so that Kim shields eir thoughts so that they can't be accessed at all, and then says the words without sending any meaning due to the shielding. However, ey wouldn't do that normally X)
(0:56:30) hellmutt: Ey would probably be able to learn to, if ey came across a demon and worked out what was going on.
(0:57:21) hellmutt: Psis would probably have a natural advantage there, being used to organising their thoughts before, or without, speaking.
(0:58:33) Veltzeh: hm... I rather meant that Kim would do it unintentionally if ey shielded eir mind
(1:00:02) hellmutt: I think demonic hearing isn't the same as real mind-to-mind telepathy, but we can work it that way if you want to.
(1:00:35) Veltzeh: I think so too, but I'm not quite sure what is it, still
(1:02:18) hellmutt: Best way I can describe it is that it's picking up on the meaning someone intends to convey.
(1:03:14) Veltzeh: yeah... and if someone blocks any communication, it's going to be hard, right?
(1:04:06) hellmutt: Like an effect that dampens all psionics in the area? Hmm, not sure - never thought about that.

And my addition:
Well, not canceling or dampening all telepathy... just personal blockage: I'm not sending anything here! However, I imagined that would seem totally dead to any telepathic creature and effectively unnatural if the person is otherwise seen, even if only other telepaths would notice it. Also receiving and sending are separate, it's easier to not send than to not receive (at least in my version of telepathy) for a telepath.

Just a thought: If Kim doesn't usually sheild eir mind, it's not so much of a problem if demons/Skerv can't understand ey while ey is shielding.

Understood. It's just that under my systems (i.e. demonic 'language' and the various psionics systems, of which only Shade's is relevant atm), psi shielding does not affect demonic 'hearing' (interpretative side of 'language').

Like I said somewhere, demons aren't telepaths outside this very limited sense - they don't pick up on anything that's broadcast telepathically. It's passive and noninvasive. They pick up on the normal psychic noise that everyone makes (unknowingly) when they speak, intending to be understood.

The only question's whether that noise would also be blocked if the speaker is a shielded telepath. Like I said, in my systems I've always assumed it wouldn't be. (Though maybe I should rethink that assumption... hmm.)

As for the dashes not working - were you using Alt-key combinations there? *confused*

Forgive me if I'm going over old and bleedin' obvious ground with the previous post - I'm never quite sure how clear I'm being. :)

Anke: yeah, but who wouldn't like to nitpick? ;)

In my system I assume that a full block would effectively be that nothing at all is sent and there is no "noise" either. So I suppose that if Kim did do that, Baskerville wouldn't understand, but otherwise would. Whee, solved!
For the record, Kim usually doesn't do a full shielding. Ey scans the surroundings lightly always but otherwise tries to keep eir telepathy inconspicuous. I suppose that a telepath in the vicinity might notice the light scan (depending on skill, I suppose) and if they're good enough, locate Kim. But then again, Kim might notice being noticed and so on... X)

Then the obvious continuation: Would demons understand telepathic messages sent to them? I have a clue but I suppose I'll let you explain your point first...

As for the dashes, the first set was Alt-codes, the others what they look like now. My encoding was ISO-8859-15. I'll try with UTF-8 now: – —

*stares, weeps* Copypasta'ing something is quantitatively different from hitting the numpad? Punctuation h8.

No, demons are not telepathic [in the full sense]. Some can potentially be.

Nor can a full demon, as opposed to their hybrid animals, be mindread unless you can read energy beings, and then you'd need some practice.

solved

Oh, and Baskerville can hear and understand canine languages (noise and body language etc) separately from his demonic linguistics, because he's one of the aforementioned hybrids.

If he uses Suitov's language centre instead of his own, he will be able to hear and understand speech in IWC, Montuone, whatever they speak in Applestone and basically anything else Suitov speaks.

Told you he's complicated, which is why I was trying to nail pure demons in general first...

Char-codes: – — ...and pasted: – —

So demons understand (unconsciously) telepathic messages that convey intentions and meanings, but not direct telepathy? (Which I think are the same thing, except the latter is deliberately sent and is often but not always composed of images and words and such?)

I haven't pondered Kim's experience that much yet but I suppose ey would be at least somewhat familiar with energy beings... probably not full reading or anything, but Kim tries to not read people anyway. Heck, basically I've usually thought that telepaths in general are somewhat of a hybrid between energy and the physical part. :)
Now, how are energy beings different from physical beings exactly and could an energy being have a physical form without being (at least partly) physical? Or vice versa? X)

Yes, unconsciously.

To be honest I've never thought of demonic 'linguistics' as the same thing as telepathy, which I think of as broadcast/reception/scanning on some kind of alternative vector (comparable to radio/infrasound/whatever, perhaps, but certainly something anyone can detect as long as they have the right sort of equipment. [Yes, before anyone asks, Shade in the distant future makes machines that can do it]).

What the heck. Cards on table here - when I came up with demonic 'language' years ago, I had my fantasy head on and it was very much soft, fuzzy science, designed to get round a specific problem in what I was writing with other folks. While my present-day self tries to figure out just how to make it mesh with my current stuff, there may be a lot of confused "um"s.

Would it help if we think of it as 'empathy'? Probably not... because, for example, a single syllable is used to convey the precise meaning and mental image of "the shade of a grove of trees by a still pool dappled with sunlight [.....]".

Well, I said energy being because I thought you'd be likely to have come across the concept before. My demonoids (and angels FWIW, though they're crazy) are 'impure' energy beings in the sense that they need at least some physical matter to survive. Generally solid, a 'body', though some can survive as gases. But that's not so relevant; the pertinent thing to psis is that they do not think with physical brains and the process is in general radically different from organic animals.

(I still don't understand Discus's charconvert settings; they do NOT do what it says on the box. Grmmph. Oh well.)

Wheeew. I think I understand things now, up to a point, but now I don't know how the demonic language and telepathy should interact. X)

The electromagnetic spectrum comparison made me think that if it goes like that, demons don't receive/understand the telepathic "wavelength" (and if they don't send or have any, Kim will think that Baskerville is an illusion and not real because ey registers no telepathy from it, unless of course ey can somehow find out that it is an energy being and confirm its existence, heh), and Kim is not aware of eir sending of the demonic language "wavelength". Apparently if everyone understands the demonic communication, everyone can receive it.

Baskerville isn't an energy being. He feels like a dog, albeit an intelligent dog who has a human's psychic fingerprints on him to a strange extent and a general sense of unidentified weirdness corresponding to the demonic bits.

You're right that demons do not receive the telepathic 'wavelength' (unless they've been altered for that purpose).

But wouldn't a non-telepathic being just seem normal to Kim? Surely most people he meets aren't psi.

Just a reminder for Vel: Skerv is not a demon. He's a hellhound, and hellhounds have been created combining normal dog and demon DNA... Considering Skerv's sire was a normal dog, he'd presumably be even closer to non-demon.

I wonder if I'm understanding Vel's train of thought... everyone with a brain sends telepathic wavelenght, at some low level, but demons might not (since they have no brain?); the difference between psis and other people would be the ability to receive on that channel (and, presumably, purposeful sending)?

I think Anke's on my brainwave now. XD
Normal people can understand telepathy sent to them (if the telepath is experienced enough with their physiology and way of thinking) and unconsciously send thoughts and emotions and such around and those can be picked up and understood by telepaths (unless they're trained to prevent it to some point), but can't tap into other people.
Telepaths understand telepathy, send it purposefully, can peek into other people's minds (if they're susceptible to telepathy) and in my world, usually can't turn off their picking of thought waves flying about, though they can train themselves to ignore it somewhat.
It would be kind of weird if telepaths could only interact telepathically with each other, heh. I suppose it could be that way too but not so in my world.
Demons then wouldn't be able to register telepathy at all or be affected by it. And the way they send their meaning when they speak is similar to how normal people react to telepathy? Normal people can't stop it but they surely are susceptible to it.

And yeah, I'm also confused what Baskerville's being a hybrid would be like after all this. XD