Babylon 5: Epiphanies

[Nealithi]

Possibly telepaths don't need to develop effective theories of mind, since they so often just sense what they're thinking and feeling. It's a little bit like lacking proprioception - like drunks being asked to close their eyes and touch their noses with their extended arms without visual feedback.

Also, it's entirely possible that as a telepath, he's entirely aware of the reactions that people have but censor from their outward behavior. Everyone has a brain module dedicated to things like laughing at the misfortune of their enemies, decent people don't let it express itself - but it's still there.

Just a thought and you were not the only one to say. But can Bester sense feelings? There was an entire episode about them creating an empath. So if telepathy does not include the feelings, then it is just data. Emotionless data. And I imagine it would be hard to generate emotional connection.

Example being writing on the internet. You need to insert certain changes to show emotional inflection. Or /s to claim sarcasm.

[hammerofglass]

Possibly telepaths don't need to develop effective theories of mind, since they so often just sense what they're thinking and feeling. It's a little bit like lacking proprioception - like drunks being asked to close their eyes and touch their noses with their extended arms without visual feedback.

Also, it's entirely possible that as a telepath, he's entirely aware of the reactions that people have but censor from their outward behavior. Everyone has a brain module dedicated to things like laughing at the misfortune of their enemies, decent people don't let it express itself - but it's still there.

Just a thought and you were not the only one to say. But can Bester sense feelings? There was an entire episode about them creating an empath. So if telepathy does not include the feelings, then it is just data. Emotionless data. And I imagine it would be hard to generate emotional connection.

Example being writing on the internet. You need to insert certain changes to show emotional inflection. Or /s to claim sarcasm.

It was a big thing in Eyes in the first season that they can read emotion. The bad guy was defeated because he lost his cool so much that a telepath not even focused on him was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of hate he had for Sinclair. I also remember Bester tracking someone via picking out who in a crowd was scared of him, I think it was his first episode but not sure.

The empath didn't just read your emotions he changed them, usually to make people like him and do what he says. The terminology is weird.

[Frustration]

Just a thought and you were not the only one to say. But can Bester sense feelings? There was an entire episode about them creating an empath. So if telepathy does not include the feelings, then it is just data. Emotionless data. And I imagine it would be hard to generate emotional connection.

Bester is a P12, the most powerful level of telepath known by humans, and he can do things like implant false memories, compulsions, even 'sleeper' personalities. I'd be very surprised if he couldn't sense what someone was feeling.

Ah, see here. Telepaths all have the ability to sense emotions, but empaths not only sense but easily 'push' emotional states into other minds, probably much more easily than a telepath could.

[Riedquat]

Just a thought and you were not the only one to say. But can Bester sense feelings? There was an entire episode about them creating an empath. So if telepathy does not include the feelings, then it is just data. Emotionless data. And I imagine it would be hard to generate emotional connection.

Bester is a P12, the most powerful level of telepath known by humans, and he can do things like implant false memories, compulsions, even 'sleeper' personalities. I'd be very surprised if he couldn't sense what someone was feeling.

Ah, see here. Telepaths all have the ability to sense emotions, but empaths not only sense but easily 'push' emotional states into other minds, probably much more easily than a telepath could.

Empathy is a mindset, an ability to comprehend others, and at root that's an intellectual capability.

[McAvoy]

I can't remember the name of the episode. But Bester had to take something to suppress his telepathic abilities. During the episode he was with (Giribaldi I think) interrogating a suspect and Beater played off that he had his abilities. Basically saying he is lying (because everyone lies) and the suspect bought it.

Also I think it was Talia during routine buisiness negotiations where she detected the supplier lying about what his company can produce. Once she called him out on it, he admitted what the company can actually do and she knew he was telling the truth.

So I think telepaths can detect your average person lying. Makes sense because when you lie, you are thinking about the actual truth and what you are going to lie about.

Probably be harder for those who can lie without thinking about it. Perhaps someone as powerful as Bester could figure out the signs when someone is lying. With perhaps the elite of the elite liar.

[clearspira]

There's this beautiful scene in this episode, which keeps throwing me off like few others. Bester and his frozen wife. He monologues to her and then, importantly, notes:

Sheridan and the others. They're probably laughing right now.

No, Bester. They wouldn't. They understand your loss and each and every last one of them would empathize with you and your loss, probably even try to comfort you. Ivanova might make a quib, but even she would ultimately comfort an emotionally distraught person like Bester. How can one be such an utter disaster at judging other people's characters and yet be such a powerful psyker, literally being able to read their mind and emotions and yet miss the most fundamental parts about other's personalities? I get that he goes in with pre-concieved notions and percieves them as "outsiders" to him and "his" people. And yet, he can read their mind. He'd catch if their first emotion to him and his quasi-dead love of his life would be: "LOL! SUCKS TO BE YOU!"

You know what B5 needs? Deanna Troi. Someone who deals in empathy rather than telepathy and can actually go about teaching this as a skill. She has experience with teaching nutty telepaths too what with the likes of Tan Albran in ''Tin Man.''

I don't know what Bester would make of someone like her though. She is as low-level a telepath as they come as she can't actually read minds, but give her a comm system and she'll match a Minbari in range.

[McAvoy]

There's this beautiful scene in this episode, which keeps throwing me off like few others. Bester and his frozen wife. He monologues to her and then, importantly, notes:

Sheridan and the others. They're probably laughing right now.

No, Bester. They wouldn't. They understand your loss and each and every last one of them would empathize with you and your loss, probably even try to comfort you. Ivanova might make a quib, but even she would ultimately comfort an emotionally distraught person like Bester. How can one be such an utter disaster at judging other people's characters and yet be such a powerful psyker, literally being able to read their mind and emotions and yet miss the most fundamental parts about other's personalities? I get that he goes in with pre-concieved notions and percieves them as "outsiders" to him and "his" people. And yet, he can read their mind. He'd catch if their first emotion to him and his quasi-dead love of his life would be: "LOL! SUCKS TO BE YOU!"

You know what B5 needs? Deanna Troi. Someone who deals in empathy rather than telepathy and can actually go about teaching this as a skill. She has experience with teaching nutty telepaths too what with the likes of Tan Albran in ''Tin Man.''

I don't know what Bester would make of someone like her though. She is as low-level a telepath as they come as she can't actually read minds, but give her a comm system and she'll match a Minbari in range.

Her empathy has really incredible range. More so than Bester's telepathy.

He would be very interested in her. Even if she is half alien. It would actually be interesting in how he would react to a whole race of powerful telepaths like the Betazoids. Human looking but yet still alien. With some like Tin Man dude being powerful enough to detect Tin Man from so far away.

Also to think that PSI Corps have been around for like a hundred years where as the Betazoids have been like that for hundreds of thousands of years.

[Frustration]

Empathy is a mindset, an ability to comprehend others, and at root that's an intellectual capability.

Telempathy, on the other hand, is pretty much a mystery, and given that it's a strictly fictional ability created by a non-rationalist, is unlikely to make sense.

Why should telepathic power be tied to personality, rather than brain tissue? Yet it is, in B5.

[Riedquat]

Empathy is a mindset, an ability to comprehend others, and at root that's an intellectual capability.

Telempathy, on the other hand, is pretty much a mystery, and given that it's a strictly fictional ability created by a non-rationalist, is unlikely to make sense.

Why should telepathic power be tied to personality, rather than brain tissue? Yet it is, in B5.

I thought it was genetic in B5.

[Frustration]

It is. It's also a matter of personal identity, to the point that the artificial personality that takes over Talia Winters' body destroys her enhanced powers in the process; Bester implies that the body was dissected without the Psi Corp learning anything.

In the B5 universe, multiple-personality syndrome is considered to be a thing, and one personality can have different power levels of even entirely different powers than another.