How does River's brain work?

POSTED BY: ZachsMind
UPDATED: Sunday, April 4, 2004 12:15
VIEWED: 9588
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ZACHSMIND

Saturday, January 3, 2004 10:04 PM

River cannot see into the future in the literal sense. She can extrapolate past and present events to predict the future from a pseudo scientific basis but she has no true clairovoyant powers. It's probable that her apparent telepathic powers function the same way. That she doesn't so much read a person's mind as she extrapolates what she knows and from that pieces together what the person is probably thinking at that moment in time. River's brain functions at an unnaturally accelerated rate. Things in the brain that are used to filter thought and separate thought from action and emotion have been removed. Her brain works more like a machine than a person, but she also has the feelings of a little girl, clinging for dear life to the madness that a greater knowledge represents.

I wrote a piece about this a short while back for Whedonesque Wiki.

http://whedonesque.com/wiki/index.php/Main/RiverTam

If anyone wishes to argue that River has some mystical capability to see into the future, please feel free to do so in this thread. =)

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"Hang on, travelers..."

CAPTBAGGYTROUSERS

Saturday, January 3, 2004 10:16 PM

I agree with about half of this theory. I would say she's doesn't have precognition, but she does seem to have sporadic episodes of actual telepathy. Watch "Ariel" and take note of the 3-D image of her brain; it flares red when danger is approaching, despite the fact that there are no cues for her to pick up on.

The only instance where she seemed to actually have an instance of psychic foresight was when she said "Fire," in "Out of Gas" before the fireball hit. Again, if she's supposedly picking up subtle cues, what was it here? One could argue that the engine had stopped, no one else noticed and she merely extrapolated what was likely to happen, but I think it was supposed to be a flash of foresight in this instance.

History repeats the old conceits

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MANIACNUMBERONE

Saturday, January 3, 2004 10:41 PM

There are many instances of River using clairvoyance.
I will name Safe as one good example. Not only did she read little Ruby's mind, she knew when Serenity and her crew were about to appear to save her and Simon from the fire.
Ariel is another good example, when River, Simon and Jayne are doing their thing in the hospital; River is aware that something has gone wrong, and that they are about to be captured. Also, in the same episode, she is aware of the imminent arrival of the blue-hands.

TEELABROWN

Sunday, January 4, 2004 12:27 AM

How about in Ariel, when she slashes Jayne and says: "He looks better in red."; and the way the Blue Hands kill people is to make them bleed. Is there a connection there?

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"Freedom is the Freedom to say that 2+2 makes 4. If that is granted, all else follws"-Winston, 1984
Keep flyin', and remember, THEY can't take the sky from US!

ZACHSMIND

Sunday, January 4, 2004 12:42 AM

Regarding Ruby:

"Her sister got killed. Mother got crazy, killed the sister. That one lived."

Ruby can't speak. So how did River know this about her? Easy. River observed the girl for most of that day, and from Ruby's behavior, River surmised that Ruby once had a sister and a mother but that her mother went crazy and killed her sister, leaving Ruby alone. The fictitious Sherlock Holmes was able to learn much more about a person after observing them for a manner of minutes, so the theory that River could learn about someone after spending a day with them, not far-fetched.

As for River knowing when Mal and the gang were going to come and save them? Well, River knows Mal and the gang well enough to predict that if they could save the Tam siblings, they would. She didn't mention it before she did because she could also theorize that if Mal and the gang saved them, it would take a certain amount of time to plan and then execute said plan.

In Ariel, we see her brain activity when she starts putting everything together. She knows that Jayne's changing the agreement Simon had made with Mal. Based on Jayne's personality, River surmises this is because Jayne has betrayed them. Something she's been assuming Jayne would do. At the beginning of the episode she attacked Jayne not because she mystically foresaw his imminent betrayal, but because based on her observational sensory input, there was a high probability that he had probably betrayed them already. Besides. She was right. He looks good in red. *smirk*

She knew the blue hands were coming cuz she knew Jayne betrayed them, and if they were caught, the blue hands couldn't be far behind.

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"Hang on, travelers..."

KELSO

Sunday, January 4, 2004 4:03 AM

It seems unlikely that she could deduce such specifics about the little girl's history, simply by observing her behaviour. There are alot of different things that could have caused the girl's trauma.

Based on what we have seen in the series, River has to have some level of psychic ability. How else could you explain the Shepard Book bit in OBJECTS IN SPACE?

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Well, here I am.

HKCAVALIER

Sunday, January 4, 2004 4:50 AM

Well, first of all Joss has given the game away on his DVD commentary where he specifially states that she is indeed psychic. In terms of the story, her certainty of the the little mute girl's history should make it clear.

To say that Sherlock Holmes could have deduced that much without being psychic would only be a compelling argument against River's psychic gift (or more particularly, the narrative necessity of that explaination) if Sherlock Holmes were not a fictional character. On the other hand, who's to say that Mr. Holmes is not himself psychic? One certainly needn't believe in an ability in order to posess it, right? Maybe all that "power of deduction" is Sherlock's way of rationalizing his gift? But what I want to know is what makes all these fantastical Holmesian deductive "powers" any less supernatural than psychic awareness? Intuition, the way our subconscious picks up on the motives of others and the functioning of the unseen things is a fact of life as banal as freeway driving.

If we accept the existance of psychic phenomena (and I'm sorry, but if you deny it out of hand I think you are being very narrow minded indeed), then good ol' Akim's Razor tells us that we can skip all the tortured argumentation and simply accept that the girl is psychic.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

ZACHSMIND

Sunday, January 4, 2004 6:22 AM

I am not denying psychic phenomena as a possibility. I am also not questioning River Tam's ability to extrapolate from observation an anticipation of future events. I'm simply saying she is not psychic in any mystical sense. Every statement or action she makes which might be perceived by us as supernatural phenomena that can't be explained CAN be explained through the proper usage of contrived technobabble.

I admitted in my previous statement that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. River Tam is a fictional character so I see no problem in comparing the two. Sherlock Holmes was NOT psychic. He trained his mind with deductive reasoning. I'm suggesting that River's natural aptitude for knowledge coupled with the experiments that were conducted upon her by Blue Sun has caused River Tam to have a near computer like mind that works on a hyper level of reasoning, similar to that of Sherlock Holmes.

She takes in sensory input as if she were a computer jacked into the world, and her brain has been programmed to process this information at an accelerated level and make truthful accurate deductions based on this information. Now with such information I grant that she'd be able to predict future events, provided what she interprets through her observations does not change. So long as the men in blue gloves continue to behave the way they do, their behavior will be predictable. So long as Jayne and Book continue to behave the way they do, it is plausible to discern what they are thinking.

As I understand the definition of the word "psychic," it indicates mental processes outside those which can be described by nature or science. I'm saying that while one may incorrectly discern River is a psychic, it would be as unfair to the character as calling her a witch.

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"Hang on, travelers..."

KELSO

Sunday, January 4, 2004 7:34 AM

What clues could she have percieved that would explain this...

"I don't give half a hump whether you're innocent or not. So where does that put you?"

While your theory may be a part of what is going on in her head... there has to be some level of psychic ability.

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Well, here I am.

MANIACNUMBERONE

Sunday, January 4, 2004 8:27 AM

I gotta be mean here. I just can't help myself.

Quote:
Originally posted by ZachsMind:
I'm simply saying she is not psychic in any mystical sense..... As I understand the definition of the word "psychic," it... (blah blah blah)

You need to stop this right now. The rest of the world goes by the regular dictionary definition of psychic.

Not only has Joss told us in the dvd's that River is psychic (as has been pointed out already to you), but the overwhelming amount of evidence that could be piled against your arguments are too staggering for me to really take you seriously.

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Inara: Who's winning?
Simon: I can't really tell, they don't seem to be playing by any civilized rules that I know.
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