Hey again! Today we'll be wrapping up our six elemental
forces of fiction, and you know what that means! That's right, Solaris fans, it's psionics time!
..Sorry. Duncan Fisher I am not. Anyway, what makes psionics fundamentally
different from magic? Can't they do pretty similar stuff? Well... yes and no. That's
like saying that gravity and electromagnetics are the same thing since they can both pull
things together. Well, yeah, they kinda do, but on totally different scales of operation
and in completely different methods. Since we covered magic last time though, let's
do a quick recap to define what it is so we can see what makes psionics different in contrast.
First off, magic uses an external energy source from outside of the caster. Second, that energy
source tends to be pretty potent, typically with a lot of power to throw around just
in general. Third, magic's not particularly great at fine-tuned, finesse effects
- it has a habit of brute forcing nearly everything it does. While there are some exceptions,
generally speaking, when magic tries to do something with precision it takes a lot of
effort to manage it. In addition to such, magic often has the capacity to completely
alter the other natural forces, and indeed physics itself can be altered practically
at will, though typically only in rather specific ways.
So with that out of the way, what makes psionics different from magic, other than that magic
tends to exist in fantasy settings and psionics in science-fiction settings more often?
Well, to start off with, the energy source of psionics is internal in nature, as in it's
utilizing the psionicist's own metabolism to power it. This means that you almost never
see a psionicist draw in energy from an external source, and the few times you do, there almost always
has to be some sort of mechanical means by which to draw that energy into the caster
directly. Most often though, psionics don't draw on external sources at all, they just
rely on a cascading effect instead. Now admittedly, we have an awful lot of latent
energy within our bodies if you start breaking nuclear bonds, as was discussed back in the
going nuclear video, but even so, this's not something which is likely to happen in general,
and usually leads to uncontrolled energy releases - we like to call these "explosions."
And as Michael Bay has taught us,
explosions are pretty awesome and all, but not so much when it's your head that's doing
the exploding bit, so yeah, no massive power buildups for psionicists.
So, going back to the issue of the reliance upon a cascading effect, psionics in virtually
every medium, from books to movies to games, tend to be based off the concept of amplifying
their effects. A small, initial effect quickly snowballs by triggering subsequent natural
-- or sometimes supernatural -- effects. Where a magician would gather large amounts
of external energy to create a fireball, such is a great deal of power required and it's
rather unweildy in nature. The psionicist doesn't have the luxury of brute forcing the
matter usually, and would make a more elegant solution - first off beginning a process which would
divide the moisture in the air into its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen,
which are both extremely flammable, then allowing
for a small spark to ignite it. This is much more energy efficient as the natural forces
present do most of the work for the psionicist instead.
Now the truly interesting aspect of such, is that with magic itself being a natural
force, it too can be nudged into behaving in a particular manner. Not in the way of
a spell, which would outline specific details for how to utilize the energy, but rather
relying upon the natural inclinations of magic as a whole. If, for example, a magical energy
source tends to be volatile, instead of trying to carefully instruct exactly how that energy
should be expended, the psionicist would simply trigger that volitility, such as a firm shake
to an unstable mana crystal causing it to shatter and release its contained energies.
Regardless, the point here is that psionics don't really have the power to completely
alter how other natural forces work, but there is the capacity to trigger what would be a
naturally occurring effect in a way that it may as well be altering such to the casual
observer. What are the most common examples of what
psionics tend to do? One of the major ones is being able to read minds. It's not like
there's even anything truly changing - the mind is still thinking the same as it would
otherwise, the only difference being that the psionic character can experience those
same thoughts directly as well from a distance. Another major example would be levitation,
primarily of objects. Bending a spoon, floating a coin in the air, etc. The examples given
for each differ by the individual setting which they take place in, but commonality
can be found in that, invariably, the same effects do exist, and they're effects that
aren't outside of the realm of nature. Lifting an object is hardly a bizarre effect, to the
point that the only thing odd about it at all is the fact that it's being done with
a character's mind without physically touching it. However, the effects are essentially the
same as if it were being physically lifted. The bent spoon is no different than a spoon
being bent with one's hands. These kinds of abilities are often grouped
together in psionics, especially in games, where it becomes clear that the physical force
used is, in fact, physical force. While it may seem quite difficult to us to lift a heavy
object, the actual amount of force being applied really isn't that much in practice. Let's
say we were to lift 100 kilograms, or 220 pounds, a distance of one meter, or a bit
over a yard. This would take 980 joules of energy to accomplish such. How much is that in calories though?
Brace yourselves...!
About 1/4 of a single calorie. Meaning if you ate an average apple,
you could lift about 20,930kg 1 meter off the ground. (NOTE: There was an error in the audio recording; it says 2,093kg but it's off by 1 decimal place. Sorry! )
Like, twenty tonnes. (Another error, same thing, I realized the error after it was uploaded sorry! )
Not bad for an apple. Or a cookie. A single oreo cookie is about 50 calories as well - about enough to lift 20 tonnes.
In psionics, rather than using your muscles in an inefficient manner to lift a given object,
this force is simply applied directly to the object itself.
So, the biggest question here is going to be what constitutes psionics and what constitutes magic?
What makes one different from the other? The easiest way to tell, is whether the power
source is internal or external, since a mage who channels energy directly through their
own body may look really similar to a psionicist, but they're still programming external energy
to create a given effect. In something like Full Metal Alchemist, it appears to be magic
at first glance, but upon careful scrutiny, it turns out to be essentially psionics, as
can be seen more clearly with the nature of the homunculi. In contrast, though The Force
from Star Wars may suggest that it's psionics given how it's mostly used for levitation
or speeding up the individual's motions, and the characters spend a lot of time meditating
or thinking about how to do things, the energy source of The Force is an ambient, external
energy which they channel through their bodies directly.
This can be quite confusing in that the two often appear very similar to one another,
and may have quite similar end results. As we covered earlier, however, gravity and magnets
can both be used to pull two things together as well. If you jump in the air, you come
back down to the ground again once more. If you were to have a strong magnet and tossed
a smaller magnet near it, the result would be quite similar. The processes in play, however,
are extremely different, as can be seen if you tossed an item which wasn't magnetic near
the magnet - it simply would ignore the magnet as if that magnet weren't even there.
So, too, does this mean that, even if magic and psionics can both create a fireball, the
means and methods by which they do so are greatly different from one another.
From there, however, there really isn't much else that you need to understand about the
differences between magic and psionics in fiction - as they're both fictional concepts,
they tend to have the specific details a bit up in the air as it is, but consistently these
can be separated by what we've covered here today.
So, with that, I'm out. I'll see you next time!
So yeah, the whole 2,000kg to 20,000kg thing was a total mistake on my part.
I mean, apparently I can lift ten times as much as I thought I could!
Well, maybe not all at once...
But still. I don't know my own strength.
Literally.
For more infomation >> The LEGO Batman Movie
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