From:	Marc Renouf renouf@********.com
Subject:	Simsense and Astral Perception
Date:	Thu, 18 Feb 1999 13:23:17 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 18 Feb 1999 Ereskanti@***.com wrote:

> In the same manner I would suspect that people gain analogous perceptions of
> their environment. For instance, I hear a noise, I imagine it's a car, my
> mind quickly interprets it as such, and yes, even an image of a car comes
> across. Fast-as-thought references move from there.

An image of a car comes across if you've ever seen a car. Have
you ever assensed the aura of a Great Form Storm Spirit? How would such a
thing come across? The point I'm trying to make is that there is no
analog to these things because they are a totally new phenomenon to the
perceiver's mind.

> > ...Only because you're selectively hearing what some of us have
> > been saying...
>
> <no more so than you, yourself are now doing>

I couldn't be responding in depth to your arguments if I was. You
will note that I am not simply spouting "no it can't, no it can't, no it
can't" in response to your "yes it can, yes it can, yes it can."

> I'm not calling it "sight", I'm calling it perception. This is a case
where
> someone is selecting out a point of reference. I said that because so many of
> *us* are visually oriented, we tend to draw analogous comparison to things in
> terms of visual cues and descriptives.

That doesn't mean that the person perceiving it will. If I was
deaf my entire life and was suddenly given my hearing, I wouldn't
interpret the sound as vision (look at the studies on cochlear implants
and you'll see my point). Astral perception would be much the same
in this regard.

> It is, in many ways, similar to what happens when a person is dreaming or
> recalling an event. There have since been (in OUR time) charting of the
> visual cortex (as well s the auditory centers) actually "firing" during
dream
> sequences as well as those people with overpowering mnemonic recall (flashback
> level stuff). That is what I am referring to when I say "reverse
sensated".

Gotcha. I would point out, however, that such "firing" is at an
extremely low (i.e. just above background) level, is quite fleeting, and
doesn't take place in all of the test subjects.

> > No, no, and no. The magician has learned an entirely new sense.
> > That sense must necessarily be taking place elsewhere in the brain (as
> > pretty much all of the sensory cortex has been mapped)
>
> Actually, it does NOT have to be taking place elsewhere in the brain, in fact,
> just because the cortex has been mapped does NOT mean it is understood to it's
> fullest. Reverse Sensation are one area of such where total comprehension is
> not known as yet.

Granted. Indeed, a case could be made that those capable of
astral perception have an overdeveloped visual cortex to deal with this
"extra sense." In this case however, the CAT-scan and NMR needed to
implant the simlink cyberware in the first place would pick it up. Thus,
a CAT-scan would become a new, dependable tool for finding those with
magical talent. The fact that it has not tends to imply that this sense
is associated with some other, lesser understood part of the brain.
Further, if we had the technology to be able to induce the brain
to see a virtual environment (a la the Matrix), one would think that our
knowledge of the structure and function of the sensory cortices would be
pretty advanced. It is 2060 in SR3, after all, and the technology is by
no means new (early ASIST coming about in the 2020's).

> Actually, it is exactly like all of those.
>
> It is seeing the "brilliance" or "luminosity" of a given aura.
>
> It is feeling the cold, "tactility" of a dark, oppressive event or place.
>
> It is know the "smell" of fear, joy, ecstacy and more upon a given target.
In
> fact, it is capable of being used to "track" a target by their "aural
trace"
> through the medium.

Is it "seeing" brilliance, or "sensing" the character of the aura?
Is it "feeling" cold, or "sensing" the oppressivity? Is it
"smelling" the
emotions, or "sensing" their lingering traces or presence? I tend to
think of it as another, separate sense entirely, whereas you seem to
always translate it into normal, physical sensory analogs. Why is the
concept of an entirely new sense with no analog so hard to grasp?

> Perhaps it's time I retold a story, as you may have missed this. There are
> people with different sensory perceptions (I'll remain visual for now). Some
> of those sensory levels these people have are definitely BEYOND the normal
> person. In fact, there are some people that "see" into wide band of the em
> spectrum. Yes, it does sound like science fiction, but it does exist. And in
> nearly all the cases (Arizona State University; Electrical Engineering
> research, 1985-86) that I am aware of, the people had a habit of "seeing"
> these senses, even if the research indicated it was something else entirely
> (tactile acuity, olfactory mutation, etc...).

I don't know about this. I can "smell" people's emotional states,
but now that the presence of human pheromones has been proven, I don't
feel crazy anymore. And it actually *would* be an olfactory sense,
confirming that my "smelling" of things was (more or less) using the right
sense). Do you have any other references on this phenomenon?
But in any event, how did the research prove that it was something
else entirely? Because that's where the activity was occurring in the
brain. If you're sensing the presence of some chemical via olfactory
mutation, your olfactory centers will fire. Even if you think you "see"
the chemical, your visual cortex isn't firing. Hence, even though you may
think you're "seeing" an aura, your visual cortex is dead as a doornail.
Hence, nothing for simsense to record there.

> > ASIST technology is not set up to be able to record these kinds of
> > things, and as such, the record will not represent the sum total of
> > the mage's experience, just a shadow of it.
>
> Which is what it does with ALL recordings actually. Read the
> sourcebooks that FASA has been so bold, if just inconsistent, on putting
> forward.

I *have* read all the sourcebooks, and I have yet to find
*anything* that supports your claim. Indeed, they are quite consistent in
*not* supporting your claim.

> > No, simsense is a recording of the metahuman *sensory* experience.
> > Nothing more.
>
> Okay, I'll take this in agreement, but, it changes nothing.

Yes, it does. Your examples have been rife with conveying the
"feelings" behind sensory input, something that simsense isn't capable of
as it is defined. If you want to use examples, make them correct.

> > How a sense is interpreted is totally subjective.
>
> True, with a twist. Those senses can be manipulated and even redirected into
> "sensing" something entirely different. "Synesthesia" as you
point out is
> merely a way to have this happen.

Perhaps, but synethesia represents either severe neurological
dysfunction or a genetically predisposed "cross-wiring" of the sensory
centers of the brain. It's not something that you can necessarily do in a
controlled way. In fact, Shadowbeat makes reference to synesthesia as a
side effect of prolonged BTL use and the neurological damage that such use
causes. It's not intentional, and is potentially damaging to the brain.

> >Simsense
> > doesn't record memories, so it really isn't possible to convey "this is
> > how I felt when my child took his first steps." What a simsense director
> > would be more likely to do (if he wanted to give such a feeling context),
> > is put in a scripted "flashback" vignette of the main character's
child
> > (i.e. a baby cast in such a role) fictionally taking its first steps, and
> > play that same euphoric track simultaneously. That way, when the audience
> > felt that sensation later in the sim, they would have a context for it.
>
> THAT is exactly the kind of scripting that I am referring to. The recording
> of the simsensual experience of a magician, to a "mundane" mind, would need
> some kind of reference point. Referencing is what is the directed portion of
> the (meta)human mind does anyway. It experiences something, even something
> new, and attempts to relate it to something else it is familiar with.

Right, so the record of what the mage feels is going to be quite
different than what the audience feels (again, what do intense
concentration and aura synchronization "feel" like? They're not
sensations, and thus will not be recorded as such).
When you extend this to astral perception, you have a problem.
Even if you assumed that the sensations could be recorded via
standard ASIST technology (which I don't), such impressions would be
totally meaningless to the audience.
You've said it yourself: assensing is a learned skill. You're not
born with it. It takes practice to be able to be able to do it
effectively, and it takes more skill to be able to interpret what you're
sensing with any degree of accuracy (i.e. the higher your Psychometry
skill, the better you are at reading auras, background counts, etc).
So even if the sensation is recorded, it's meaningless to the
audience. It makes no sense because there's no context for it. It's a
blind man at a beauty contest. Worse yet, magic is granted to be *highly*
individual. Other *mages* may have no basis to understand what they're
getting from your sensorium.

> When it does NOT recognize the sensation, it gets/achieves differing
> levels of confusion.

My point exactly.

What does this all add up to? The fact that astral stuff doesn't
record onto simsense. As described in Shadowbeat. As backed up by the
(consistent) descriptions of how simsense works in other sourcebooks
(including the main book). Where does the inconsistency lie? The only
things I have seen that make the whole thing inconsistent are the
assumptions and assertions that you have been making.

Marc