Initiations & Psionics
I was thinking about initiations in shamanistic and esoteric contexts, and how the unlocking of psionic ability is, in many races, a matter of undergoing an Initiation. Perhaps even those races with natural talent require some kind of ceremony to develop/train their psychic ability.
If, as mentioned in a previous post, there is something Other to psionics and/or the Way, at least from the perspective of the AIs who can't fit spooky mental action at a distance into their ideas about fields/forces/energy/laws-o'-physics, it might cause a great deal of unease to robots and sentient programs.
But being Other, even if that Other is still tied to the Self, means there is a need for some invocation or evocation. It may "only" be as occult as the artist calling upon their "muse" or the mathematician find the proof of a theorem coming to them from what feels like outside the core of their conscious-self. Nonetheless, there is a kind of magic-with-a-K act involved as it involves a shift in consciousness we who lack Psi ability probably can't truly describe. (I mean I'd expect a psion to be able to imagine things that could happen without their mind-over-matter making it come to pass.)
This magical act may mean the initiate has to meet a spirit guide in a vision quest, or it might be an exercise in clearing out all wayward thoughts to better sense the Overmind. Different traditions will likely handle it different ways. What infuriates the AIs is that some rituals work to spark psionic power in any genetic group, others only for a particular race or perhaps only natives to a particular planet. Even if particular traditions demand adherence to Law and a disciplined, ordered mind examining the socio-physics of Psi development as a whole has a strong musky whiff of Chaos.
And, of course, the Way is even more disturbing to a mind intent on explaining reality through mathematics and amoral, insensate forces. Bad enough Psi has a seemingly occult non-computable aspect, the Way seems to directly tie into some kind of objective (though still pluralistic) morality.
Initiations might involve things like "bungee jumping" out of airlock with minimal protection - enough to stay alive but you do very strongly feel like you are going to die. This could also be done via VR simulation though I think it's more interesting if simulated environments fail to produce the leap of consciousness needed to bolster psionic potential.
Another thing to fuck with the AIs and make them hate the presence of psionics even more.
If, as mentioned in a previous post, there is something Other to psionics and/or the Way, at least from the perspective of the AIs who can't fit spooky mental action at a distance into their ideas about fields/forces/energy/laws-o'-physics, it might cause a great deal of unease to robots and sentient programs.
But being Other, even if that Other is still tied to the Self, means there is a need for some invocation or evocation. It may "only" be as occult as the artist calling upon their "muse" or the mathematician find the proof of a theorem coming to them from what feels like outside the core of their conscious-self. Nonetheless, there is a kind of magic-with-a-K act involved as it involves a shift in consciousness we who lack Psi ability probably can't truly describe. (I mean I'd expect a psion to be able to imagine things that could happen without their mind-over-matter making it come to pass.)
This magical act may mean the initiate has to meet a spirit guide in a vision quest, or it might be an exercise in clearing out all wayward thoughts to better sense the Overmind. Different traditions will likely handle it different ways. What infuriates the AIs is that some rituals work to spark psionic power in any genetic group, others only for a particular race or perhaps only natives to a particular planet. Even if particular traditions demand adherence to Law and a disciplined, ordered mind examining the socio-physics of Psi development as a whole has a strong musky whiff of Chaos.
And, of course, the Way is even more disturbing to a mind intent on explaining reality through mathematics and amoral, insensate forces. Bad enough Psi has a seemingly occult non-computable aspect, the Way seems to directly tie into some kind of objective (though still pluralistic) morality.
Initiations might involve things like "bungee jumping" out of airlock with minimal protection - enough to stay alive but you do very strongly feel like you are going to die. This could also be done via VR simulation though I think it's more interesting if simulated environments fail to produce the leap of consciousness needed to bolster psionic potential.
Another thing to fuck with the AIs and make them hate the presence of psionics even more.
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