Science News: Is River's ESP Real?
POSTED BY: two
UPDATED: Sunday, June 17, 2012 21:33
VIEWED: 22646
PAGE 5 of 7
Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Try to recall Ariel.
River knows in advance the patient is about to die, that the doctor is killing him. She cannot be reading the mind of the doc, he is too stupid to realize he's killing his patient. The patient doesn't know he's about to be killed by his incopetent doc. Nobody else knows the situation, other than God and any other precogs milling about.
River is precog.
Not necessarily. The doctor doesn't have to know he's making a mistake for River to know. She learns things extremely quickly. She could have the medical knowledge to understand what the doctor was doing was wrong. The doctor knows the patient was prepped for surgery. The doctor knows what drug he's using. River can read those and put 2 and 2 together herself. No precognition required.
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Nice analysis. I actually agree, mostly because like I said I don't believe in souls, and because this would make the series more supernatural than sci-fi, which Whedon has said he was avoiding.
But River as a medium is an interesting concept. We don't have any evidence for it yet, but who knows what powers Joss might have given River as the plot demanded?
The knowledge about Miranda almost certainly came from members of parliament. But being ON Miranda, where no one survived except the Reavers, who I question whether River could draw meaningful information from, she seems to suggest she can hear something (silence) from the corpses. That could be normal, or that could be a product of the WAY the people died. The plot point could set up for a reveal like that, specially since I've heard it suggested that if Whedon managed to reboot the franchise he was still planning on including Alan and Ron somehow.
Ariel may or may not be questionable, but she's strongly suggested to be precog in supplemental material. My question is if she's both a medium AND a precog.
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Byte,
You don't believe in souls.
How about spirits?
If you can, please explain to me how you view James Von Praagh (sp?), if you can assume for this time that he is not fake (because I know he's not).
I am interested in hearing your tale.
To be clear, this is a time I'm not joking.
Thanks in advance. If you are not familiar with him, please post after you have learned a little about him, his shows (live, and also televised and radio) and experiences.
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No, I don't think I will, sorry. Seems to me like all that would lead to is some argument where everything I say is just as a skeptic and everything you say is just as a believer. Let's just keep talking about/ speculating about River.
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Nicely done Byte, you don't have to talk about some weird show about dead people, or whatever it is.
I like this thread, everyone has really well thought out arguments about what River may or may not be able to do, lets keep it rollin like this.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
No, I don't think I will, sorry. Seems to me like all that would lead to is some argument where everything I say is just as a skeptic and everything you say is just as a believer. Let's just keep talking about/ speculating about River.
I didn't mean for it to sound like a trap for an argument, or a disagreement.
I don't doubt you think what you stated, and I'm not interested in arguing about it.
But I don't know your POV, your statement is so far outside my perspective that I don't think I'll be able to grasp it without you explaining it to me.
The offer still stands, I'd still like to hear how your views mesh.
If I get the gist of it, I might have follow-up questions, but you'd have no obligation.
I'm thinking there must be some explanation, I just don't know what it is.
Thanks in advance.
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Quote:
I don't doubt you think what you stated, and I'm not interested in arguing about it.
Hmm. Then I wonder why you wanted me to tell you how I can "explain" the abilities of what appears to be a proponent of your viewpoint. And insisted that I watch the person's videos - those are the actions of someone looking to convert, not discuss.
If you were really interested in what I thought, or how I thought it, you would've asked me that, instead.
I feel no particular reason that I should bore you with what I think on this subject, and why. I still believe the original subject of the thread would be quite a bit more useful (and fun) for both of us. In this instance, we can both believe that River might be a medium, or a precog.
One of the things I really like about Firefly is how much detail goes into every show. You can watch it every day for years and STILL find tiny things you didn't notice before. This conversation has me thinking about a drawing we saw River working on once, of Russian nesting dolls. I suspect that was supposed to be symbolic for something that happened in the episode, something "nested." I forget which episode.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
One of the things I really like about Firefly is how much detail goes into every show. You can watch it every day for years and STILL find tiny things you didn't notice before. This conversation has me thinking about a drawing we saw River working on once, of Russian nesting dolls. I suspect that was supposed to be symbolic for something that happened in the episode, something "nested." I forget which episode.
Pretty sure that was the end of Ariel before the "Time to go to sleep again" "No, mei mei it's time to wake up" exchange.
I agree that it doesn't really matter what people think of spirits and ghosts. That's like asking if someone believes in the Force when discussing Star Wars. It's irrelevant as Star Wars is set in a world where the Force exists. If Joss wants a soul or ghosts or spirits to exist in Firefly then they do. Whether we believe in them or not.
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...Ooh. Russian dolls. Was that a reference to Niska in the next episode? INTERESTING.
Quote:
I agree that it doesn't really matter what people think of spirits and ghosts. That's like asking if someone believes in the Force when discussing Star Wars. It's irrelevant as Star Wars is set in a world where the Force exists. If Joss wants a soul or ghosts or spirits to exist in Firefly then they do. Whether we believe in them or not.
Exactly. :) I want to discuss the mechanisms of the psychic abilities shown within the show. To understand River's abilities, I've previously framed it in the past in terms of things I had done and how I had done them, but other people will have equally valid interpretations.
Speaking of mechanisms, it might be interesting to discuss the surgery on River's amygdala, the how and why and what else they might have done.
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Good point Zeke, its pretend and lets stay within the universe the show occurs in.
I don't believe that stripping River's amigdala would do what it does in the show, true your amigdala regulates fear impulses, but I don't think she'd be touched like she is if that was all they did. I should think that stripping her amigdala would make her not really afraid of anything, sure her logic would tell her to get away from a dangerous situation, but she wouldn't have the physical fear responses that we would have, if she did they would be drastically reduced. Clearly this isn't how River is in the show, so their medical explanation seems to lack a lot of research into the area of brain structures and their functions and what happens if they're different. But its TV so they can say what they want about the brain science and I don't care. The point is that whatever they did, they made River into a touched, empath/mind reading assassin.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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