"James M. Kelleher" schribe:
}Ok lets start, Scott (2g) Kellogg: I don't think a telepath is
}going to be much help in mapping someone's BRAIN; His/her's MIND
}maybe; Even my wife noticed that! how about a clairvoient Doctor.
}Hummm and even then I'm not so shure that the Zho's would be all
}of that much ahead in Nural jack tech. After all they have all of
}those nifty Flicking controls...
Well, yes. There are differences between the brain and the mind.
However, a detailed functional study of the mind/brain will be
infinitely easier for the longstanding psionic sciences of the
Zhodani than it would be for the Imperials.
Allow my to give you an example of how the brain is 'mapped'. It
is mainly accomplished by studies of head injuries and the ways in
which the physical damage is correlated to the damage to the mind.
Person X has a lesion on the cingulate gyrus, just above the corpus
callosum. This might be established by several means: (CAT scan,
clairvoyance or other)
Person X's behavior is to sit around all day and do nothing.
Person X will not even eat unless fed.
So what does that say about the function of the cingulate gyrus of
the brain? Hum... Well...?
A psychologist will sit around for hours and wonder and puzzle what
the heck is going on in person X's mind. Eventually, (If they're
very lucky and have enough high tech equipment around to determine
it all) They may come up with an answer that is an edjucated
guess. Thus they discover the function of the cingulate gyrus of
the brain.
A telepath can tell you *EXACTLY* what damage has been done to the
mind. "Well, person X can see and hear and understand everything
around him, but has no desire to act upon that information. Even
to the point of knowing that he is hungry, but he lacks the will
power to get up and go feed himself. Therefore the cingulate gyrus
appears to be the center of the mind's motivations and will power."
(BTW, in case you're wondering, this is the current guess as to the
function of the Cinguate Gyrus.)
Another sort of study to feed a person's brain stimulus and then
monitor activity levels of different areas of the brain by watching
the levels of glucose uptake.
"Hey! When we feed him visual images, the occipital lobes of the
brain light up! Look at the glucose intake there. Must be the
visual centers!"
Or, in brain surgery, the surgeon pokes around a bit and finds that
by prodding here, just posterior to the central sulcus the patient
feels a sensation in his foot. But if they prod just *anterior* to
the central sulcus, the foot *moves* Ah HA here we have the
sensory part of the brain, and here we have the motor!
Then we come to a *BIG* problem. Well, it seems that not everyone
in the world has an identical brain, nor an identical mind.
(Surprise, surprise) To put in something like a direct neural
interface, you need to know the recipient's brain with a fair
amount of exactness. VERY difficult if you have only a CAT scan
and a glucose monitor. But in the case of the telepath, the brain
differences can be mapped out for individuals because the minds can
be mapped out with clarity.
With telepathy you're taking all the guesswork out of it. Much
more accurate determinations can be made because the mind in
question can be studied with exactitude.
I would further point out that the history of the Zhodani gives
them a surprising amount of scientific background on the mind and
brain. The Consulate is the longest standing human government in
the entirity of the Traveller Universe. TL8 should give the
Zhodani all the technology they need to determine an accurate model
of the human brain. They've been TL8+ for nearly 8000 years.
Their psi-science has been around for longer than that. I maintain
that the Zhodani have had accurate models of the brain for at least
8000 years.
Because of this and their culture, it seems logical to me that the
psionic and medical sciences related to the brain of the Zhodani
are at the very *least* 1 or 2 tech levels (probably more like 3-4)
in advance of what would be normal for Imperial technologies.
Thus, they would have a DNI at TL12. Possibly even as low as late
TL9 or early TL10.
Another area where telepathy will give a *definite* edge to the
Zhodani is in design work of work stations.
An Imperial designer, when laying out a cockpit of a fighter knows
that there is a Lot of data that has to be presented to the pilot.
The main danger of designing a cockpit (even one that the pilot can
customize) is swamping the pilot with data. It is the most
difficult problem when designing cockpits.
Side note: Yes, it can be done, you can easily get used to the 11
guages in a Cessna 152, but even that simple trainer aircraft can
look awfully daunting when you first try and learn to scan your
instrument panel. I don't even want to think about how someone
would scan the panel of a Boeing 747! I used to know an F-14
Jockey, when the early jets came out, there were some examples of
early jets that required the *full* time of the *full* crew
watching all the instruments just to keep the ship in the air! (I
think the example he used was the A-3?) If it had tried to go into
combat, no one would have been able to watch out for any enemies!
A Zhodani cockpit designer would *KNOW* how to present a lot of
data to a pilot's mind without swamping him. Studies on how to do
just that would be thousands of years old by now and quite
perfected. Zhodani data presentation inside the cockpit (and
outside for that matter) is *THE BEST* in the Traveller Universe.
Scott 2G Kellogg
^Z