Psionic in Utopia

[Calvax]

If their mumbo jumbo give stable result (let's say "creating force field around spaceships" - psionic shields shown in stream) - it's technologizing. Technology is highly predating sicentific method or actual understanding - first people who used seafaring actually hadn't any clue about Archimed law or how it's works, they just noticed wooden rafts don't sink, as a rule.
There is countless (literally) things that can happen when psychic POP tries, for example, to read somebody's mind, so there are two possibilities:
1. They tries to read a mind and it's works. Why? Another question, but if it happens stable, the very first sentence in this point is a description of technology.
2. They tries to read a mind and SOMETHING happens. Mind has been read. A head of psychic exploded. A head of victim exploded. Some star dims. Planet became marshmallow. All of this in same time.
Even Warhammer psy is technologized (and humans don't know HOW it works) to the extent it can stable used in war.

The very idea behind propaganda or advertisements is that human behaiviour in every culture HAS stable rules (known or not-known). You can actually predict how will people act and manipulate them.

There's a big difference between observing the limits and abilities of psychic powers and figuring out how they work or how to replicate them. The effects might be reproducible, but if the only people who get psychic powers are those of a certain ideological leaning with a relationship to the god-like entities who bestow those powers it's vastly more difficult to study and reverse-engineer.

It's not like psychic powers in stellaris are some sort of purely natural, evolved trait. You can't point to a part of a psychic pop's brain and say "there's the Organic Subspace Sensor Neural Network that allows for mind reading!" It's very literally the realm of "aliens" vastly more powerful.

And sure, perhaps eventually materialists with enough time and resources could figure out the basic physical laws and replicate the effects. But that assumes the Shroud beings will let them. Given that there is an eldritch/40k theme to the psionics of stellaris the researchers might fail for reasons ranging from none of them agreeing on what they've just observed (with digital recordings being equally vague) to all going completely mad.

There are a few things in stellaris already that are nods towards lovecraft. As much as the tentacled, elder alien race trope is slapped on everything these days the key theme of Lovecraft's work was that knowledge existed beyond human experience that was inherently destructive to the human experience. A huge part of why Lovecraft is so effective in the modern age is because it's the antithesis of the post-enlightenment belief that knowledge is power and one can learn more about the universe without risk beyond the trivial (i.e. the mundane safety concerns of a lab). In a Lovecraftian world learning new things is as risky as ingesting strange new plants. Could be nutritious, could also poison you.

 

[aono]

Who says the Shroud entities have a civilization? Or that they are remotely sensical from a human perspective?

Why do we call them "sentient" at all?
I mean, if a spirit inclined to appear to people willing to believe in them whether there's proof or not, well, it's a rule! It's kind of stable pattern in said spirit behavior, we can rely to it - for some known extent, sure.

But since it's mumbo jumbo and not consistent and not in line with the scientific method, it doesn't give a stable result because there is no stable result to be had. Yes, that's not how reality actually works, but we're dealing with a fictional universe here.

Look into Great Awakening screenshot.
"Telepahy has already replaced most verbal communication..." - how is it possible if you can't expect stable result? You should be able to get stable result - "I'm doing X and my thoughts are translated into another person mind" to communicate.
WHY exactly this works - you can have no idea. So what? Scientific method was created very recent in historical terms.

Here's an example:
...

Let me extend a list:
Day 5. In order to have a breakfast Rosh Penin light up his cooking pot. He successfully contact the Shroud and speaks to Elvis. He is not amused and kinda dazed.
Day 6. In order to start a car John Smith insert a key into ignition system. His planet exploded.
That's what complete random and "no stable rules" is. And as there is a lot more ways to be dead that to be alive, so complete randomess will destroy universe very fast.

The Empire might be able to use psykers consistently, but let's not pretend that the realms of Chaos (or even their servants) obey consistent rules governing basic things like "gravity is constant" or "bacteria reproduce at observable and predictable rates."

Ahm... so? Yeah, in Warp there are no such things as "gravity is constant" and "bacteria reproduce at observable and predictable rates." Why it's a problem? What's a tablet that says ANY rule of our dimension should be present in any other dimension? In still water lightspeed is something around 225 000 km/sec. Does it mean everywhere it should be same? Does it mean everywhere light should have speed at all?
That's it - rules of gravity or biology aren't apply in Warp. Sure. But Warp definitly have it's own stable rules - even if sane man can't understand it. If it hadn't stable use of psykers would be impossible.

There's a big difference between observing the limits and abilities of psychic powers and figuring out how they work or how to replicate them. The effects might be reproducible, but if the only people who get psychic powers are those of a certain ideological leaning with a relationship to the god-like entities who bestow those powers it's vastly more difficult to study and reverse-engineer.

Imagine you're a child. You want ice cream. You don't actually understand economics, money theory, your parent work, ice cream making technology.
How will you take an ice cream? You go to your dad and say - "dad, I want ice cream". As everybody knows, child CAN to some extent predict a dad's answer, right? He knows his father, he has some experience for such things, and so on. Is it possible to create a formula for predict accuratly will a child get ice cream or not? No, on current level of psychology we can't, and nothing actually proves it ever be possible. Can materialist understand how a child get an ice cream?
You actually came to conclusion that so fiercly countered somewhere up here: spiritualist ethos = religion, psi = working theurgy. Why can't materialist understand a conclusion: "there is a great entity in parallel universe, that can make things happen; if you're acting (thinking, et cetera; *that's a list*) in a way he pleased, he will make things for you."?

 

[Velorian]

Why do we call them "sentient" at all?
I mean, if a spirit inclined to appear to people willing to believe in them whether there's proof or not, well, it's a rule! It's kind of stable pattern in said spirit behavior, we can rely to it - for some known extent, sure.

Not counting alien civilizations that do obviously supernatural things, how do you get a sceptical scientist to realize that it's a rule if all his experiments are right around the random incident mark? And how does he prove it and make others believe he isn't a madman?

Sentient just means the entity is capable of making decisions and actively outsmart you, what it's motives might be need not be remotely human.

Look into Great Awakening screenshot.
"Telepahy has already replaced most verbal communication..." - how is it possible if you can't expect stable result? You should be able to get stable result - "I'm doing X and my thoughts are translated into another person mind" to communicate.

That's not the first step though. When that happens it has already been a confirmed phenomenon for a while.

Also a sceptical person might do exactly the same thing as the other guy did and still fail, if there's something about him which makes the process fail. He could still observe the other guys doing it and conclude that it exists, but that's not the same.

He might never ever be able to make a machine that can copy the process if the Shroud is only accessible to fully biological sentient minds with a certain mindset.

 

[Rubidium]

Imagine you're a child. You want ice cream. You don't actually understand economics, money theory, your parent work, ice cream making technology.
How will you take an ice cream? You go to your dad and say - "dad, I want ice cream". As everybody knows, child CAN to some extent predict a dad's answer, right? He knows his father, he has some experience for such things, and so on. Is it possible to create a formula for predict accuratly will a child get ice cream or not? No, on current level of psychology we can't, and nothing actually proves it ever be possible. Can materialist understand how a child get an ice cream?
You actually came to conclusion that so fiercly countered somewhere up here: spiritualist ethos = religion, psi = working theurgy. Why can't materialist understand a conclusion: "there is a great entity in parallel universe, that can make things happen; if you're acting (thinking, et cetera; *that's a list*) in a way he pleased, he will make things for you."?

He knows his father because he presumably interacts with his father regularly. If his interactions are limited by something beyond his control, that makes it much harder to predict. If his father is actually a whole host of different warp entities that only make contact when they feel like it and with differing agendas, it becomes essentially impossible to predict.

And if his father is psychic and can read minds, and only tells him about the existence of ice cream when he has a spiritual mindset? After all, the child can only ask for ice cream because he knows what it is; if his father never exposes him to ice cream in the first place, he'd never know to ask. Other children may have ice cream, but if they never let him know where it comes from, how is he to know his dad could give it to him?

Indeed, just because something obeys physical laws doesn't mean something is predictable. Chaos (the physics/mathematics concept here, not the WH40K one) is not random, but it is essentially unpredictable over reasonable time scales, because it is so sensitive to tiny differences that errors in measurement quickly build up. Depending on the system and the level of accuracy of your initial measurements, you can predict over a short time scale (which is how we can e.g. make a guess as to what the weather will be like tomorrow), but true prediction is essentially impossible. Now, imagine trying to do that with psychic warp entities that you can only observe when they choose to let you...

And yes, art/advertising can have rules enough to make some predictions, but again, not consistently. There are plenty of cases where massive amounts of money are spend on an advertisement and no one likes it, or where a cheap, writeoff movie becomes an unexpected massive hit. That's dealing with fellow humans, and where we have plenty of ability to observe. The Shroud only allows you to observe it after you've spent a significant time under the influence of its effects (i.e. your second Ascension Perk). Before that, you are basically just stumbling in the dark. The original psychics are just those that a particular Shroud entity finds attractive or amusing or whatever, and bestows its blessings on them. You can't experiment, because you have no control (the shroud entity may get offended, or detect your experiment and mess with it just for kicks, or what have you).

There was recently a study done, which found that ~40% of a randomly selected series of studies in psychology could be replicated. That's not because psychologists are a bunch of frauds, but because replicating things with people, even in a controlled experiment, is really hard. You don't know what minor factors will affect things (maybe subject X had a fight with their spouse yesterday, and that's causing them to behave differently than another subject). Now, imagine doing that with an assortment of extradimensional warp entities, at least some of whom are actively malevolent.

 

[aono]

Not counting alien civilizations that do obviously supernatural things, how do you get a sceptical scientist to realize that it's a rule if all his experiments are right around the random incident mark?

You see, problem here is a big one, and that's why Clark's Law is fully applicable here.
TV is supernatural. Space satellite is supernatural. Eye forming is supernatural. If you're looking in it from... well... 11 century.
Because actually nothing that happen is supernatural. If alien civilizations can do things I percieve as supernatural - well, primitives under my observation posts believes I can do supernatural things!

And how does he prove it and make others believe he isn't a madman?

That's why actually sciensists acting with basic presumption that experiment isn't fraud and a scientist in his mind until actual proof about opposite exists.

That's not the first step though. When that happens it has already been a confirmed phenomenon for a while.

Actual understanding of Shroud existence (not to mention entering it) is a step AFTER that.
Thing is, this example proves that stable result with psi IS POSSIBLE. It can be based on the whim of some creatures whose motives I don't understand, sure - but why do you claim this very concept is unthinkable for materialists?

Also a sceptical person might do exactly the same thing as the other guy did and still fail, if there's something about him which makes the process fail. He could still observe the other guys doing it and conclude that it exists, but that's not the same.

Yeah. So a scientist make an obvious conclusion - this other guy have something I don't.
If that guy can repeat said effect stable - no reason to deny it.
And first step to psi ascension don't make EVERY creature in your empire psion, it's make them _latent_ psions. That means "they can became psions if some (unknown) requirements will complete".

He might never ever be able to make a machine that can copy the process if the Shroud is only accessible to fully biological sentient minds with a certain mindset.

We can't build a machine that write good poems, at least not yet. It doesn't mean sciencist or materialist can't be a poet or obliged to deny existence of poetry.

I mean, let's play fair. Spiritualists can be scientists, use scientific methods, be curious and open-minded, they're mystics but not close-minded dogmatics (they COULD be, but they don't MUST be). But materialists as well should be able to see reality when it's came and kick you in the teeth.
EVEN if this crushed their precious theories about "how world works". By the way, real-life materialists shows they can drop theories with new evidence better than real-life spiritualists.

 

[aono]

He knows his father because he presumably interacts with his father regularly. If his interactions are limited by something beyond his control, that makes it much harder to predict. If his father is actually a whole host of different warp entities that only make contact when they feel like it and with differing agendas, it becomes essentially impossible to predict.

If his father isn't a whole host of different warp entities but just an unknown man, his actions will be unpredictable for child as well. But will we call it "unimaginable" or "unpredictable"?

Other children may have ice cream, but if they never let him know where it comes from, how is he to know his dad could give it to him?

Well, if every spiritualist in Stellaris actually activly hide their psi abilities and never tell anyone about their experience, yeah, nobody will know about it.
Also you will never have psi as civilization achievement.

Chaos (the physics/mathematics concept here, not the WH40K one) is not random, but it is essentially unpredictable over reasonable time scales, because it is so sensitive to tiny differences that errors in measurement quickly build up.

Quite the opposite. Not "chaos is essentially unpredictable over reasonable time scales", but "a system that's essentially unpredictable over reasonable time scales we called chaos" - if you're speaking about physics/mathematics concept. Nobody actually tells that weather is random - we just don't have instruments to calculate it.
Maybe we never will, but no meteorologist tries to declare weather "supernatural" or "mystical" or, ahm, "non-existing".

And yes, art/advertising can have rules enough to make some predictions, but again, not consistently.

And yes, advertisements sometimes fail, or people laugh at propaganda instead of being inspired by it, but that doesn't change that it has been effectively technologized from a game standpoint.

Select something, please. You can't actually declare both this things at once.
Art/advertising can do predictions or they can't. If they can, well, they can, and then art/advertising is a technology (in my opinion art isn't, advertising is). If they can't, you can't name them "effectively technologized" even "from a game standpoint".

 

[Calvax]

Imagine you're a child. You want ice cream. You don't actually understand economics, money theory, your parent work, ice cream making technology.
How will you take an ice cream? You go to your dad and say - "dad, I want ice cream". As everybody knows, child CAN to some extent predict a dad's answer, right? He knows his father, he has some experience for such things, and so on. Is it possible to create a formula for predict accuratly will a child get ice cream or not? No, on current level of psychology we can't, and nothing actually proves it ever be possible. Can materialist understand how a child get an ice cream?
You actually came to conclusion that so fiercly countered somewhere up here: spiritualist ethos = religion, psi = working theurgy. Why can't materialist understand a conclusion: "there is a great entity in parallel universe, that can make things happen; if you're acting (thinking, et cetera; *that's a list*) in a way he pleased, he will make things for you."?

Is there anything to say that materialists don't understand this? The materialist in this scenario is another child who is denied ice cream because they won't follow their parents rules. They can observe and learn all they like, but until they are mature enough to afford their own ice cream/manipulate the fabric of space they have to play by the rules of those that can.

From a materialists point of view the spiritualists may be dining with the devil. Not literally per se, but we know the shroud has some severely negative consequences to it. Psi being locked to spiritualists likely just represents the fact that the game isn't built to model empires over hundreds of thousands of years of history.

 

[aono]

Is there anything to say that materialists don't understand this?

Actually, a lot of people here says materialists just can't understand psi because psi is improvable with science methodology.

They can observe and learn all they like, but until they are mature enough to afford their own ice cream/manipulate the fabric of space they have to play by the rules of those that can.

Can't see a problem. Actually it's a point in my idea in starting post. That's why, I believe, IF you take psi-based perk, you would take a big boost to spiritualist ethics, and if you want to finish psi ascension (take second perk and enter a Shroud) you need to be spiritualist. I'm not offering to destroy a connection between spiritualist ethic and psi - I'm trying to say that having rare psi in your empire should bring it to became mostly spiritual, not the opposite way.

Taking a perk is a declaration "I want ice cream!" and starting to observe and learn. Maybe (it's possible by game engine in utopia, right?), you'll decide in the end that this ice-cream isn't actually a big boost, so you're staying without this devil icecream and will not dance for some strange entities out there, but you'll have latent psis and big chunk of population who actually believes it's a good idea (so you'll have less Influence and Unity).

 

[Calvax]

Actually, a lot of people here says materialists just can't understand psi because psi is improvable with science methodology.

Yeah I see that, but mechanics wise that isn't how it seems to work in the game. At least I don't see that it does.

Can't see a problem. Actually it's a point in my idea in starting post. That's why, I believe, IF you take psi-based perk, you would take a big boost to spiritualist ethics, and if you want to finish psi ascension (take second perk and enter a Shroud) you need to be spiritualist. I'm not offering to destroy a connection between spiritualist ethic and psi - I'm trying to say that having rare psi in your empire should bring it to became mostly spiritual, not the opposite way.

Taking a perk is a declaration "I want ice cream!" and starting to observe and learn. Maybe (it's possible by game engine in utopia, right?), you'll decide in the end that this ice-cream isn't actually a big boost, so you're staying without this devil icecream and will not dance for some strange entities out there, but you'll have latent psis and big chunk of population who actually believes it's a good idea (so you'll have less Influence and Unity).

I like to think how it appears from all angles. From the psi empires perspective they're saying "I want ice cream" and by having unquestioning (or at least less-questioning) faith in the Shroud they get ice cream. They believe this is good because they get psi and it works into their beliefs. The materialists could believe that this is a bad, short term decision. Why submit yourself to the will of the Ice Cream Giver when, in time, you could figure out how to get ice cream yourself? The spiritualist counter to that could be that playing by the rules of the ICG is a much quicker path to learning how Ice Cream is made, and why not put your fate in the hands of ones so powerful?

At the end of the day both arguments are fascinating lore wise and mechanically. It's a shame that people reduce spiritualism/materialism to idiot-faith/super-science.

 

[Velorian]

That's why actually sciensists acting with basic presumption that experiment isn't fraud and a scientist in his mind until actual proof about opposite exists.

Right, but assuming you HAVEN'T met a civilization with obviously reliable psionics, how would any serious scientist have a motive to believe these people are not crazy if he can't find any unexplainable (and confirmable) miracles or observe them do anything impossible?

Let's assume real spirits are doing supernatural stuff out in the current world right now, yet hiding it. If that's the case we have no reason to believe people experiencing it are speaking the truth as it seems so damn unlikely..

Perhaps spirits were more obvious in the past and various prophets were truly capable of performing miracles, but now the entities stay low key. It could be true, but it does not seem likely at all.

Yeah. So a scientist make an obvious conclusion - this other guy have something I don't.
If that guy can repeat said effect stable - no reason to deny it.
And first step to psi ascension don't make EVERY creature in your empire psion, it's make them _latent_ psions. That means "they can became psions if some (unknown) requirements will complete".

The assumption is that not only will these beings not work with the scientist, they will also not assist the psychic they helped in the past if the scientist is looking at it or recording it.

This being in the early stages where psionics is still unconfirmed and no one can reliably do it. Before the first tech.

 

[aono]

From the psi empires perspective they're saying "I want ice cream" and by having unquestioning (or at least less-questioning) faith in the Shroud they get ice cream.

Sure - nobody in sane mind offer to BAN spiritualists to take a perk! Quite more - they'll have a neat bonus for doing it with more ethic appeal.

Right, but assuming you HAVEN'T met a civilization with obviously reliable psionics, how would any serious scientist have a motive to believe these people are not crazy if he can't find any unexplainable (and confirmable) miracles or observe them do anything impossible?

Because this evidences is, by the very text of the perk and all fluff that's in-game already, part of all cultures of the Stellaris galaxy. Even a race that starts with materialistic ethos at least HAD in their history thoughts about gods and spirits. Quite the same way why ESP studies exists in our current science.
Also because any serious scientist every morning see that Sun rises in the east, and knows it's wrong.

The assumption is that not only will these beings not work with the scientist, they will also not assist the psychic they helped in the past if the scientist is looking at it or recording it.

Yeah - and the very text of the perk event says it's the very way SPIRITUAL (because now it's for spiritualist empires, right?) civilization relate to such stories. "Until recently, this stories were just that - stories".
By the way, theories SPIRITUAL civilization used to explain sudden psi were "sudden evolutionary growth-spurt" or "something triggered abilities that were always present in our genetic code". Quite materialistic explanations, I should say, not "our long-standing spiritual quest at last bring us to breakthrough" or something.

Let's assume real spirits are doing supernatural stuff out in the current world right now, yet hiding it. If that's the case we have no reason to believe people experiencing it are speaking the truth as it seems so damn unlikely..

Of course. Even more, there are current research (not very popular, because not any resonable output) that trying to prove that thing. They don't actually provide a result, but continue trying.

 

[Secret Master]

Actually, a lot of people here says materialists just can't understand psi because psi is improvable with science methodology.

If I understand the Shroud correctly from the material presented thus far, it would not be a realm with stable rules. If it does, then I would be more inclined to agree with you.

 

[TheAtreides84]

Well, i disagree with that statement then.
Magic defies the laws of physics, period.
I snap with my fingers,a nd out of nothingnes a tank apears, that's magic yea, because i created a thing from literaly nothing.

That's a false problem. In every universe where magic exists, there are rules which can very well be rules of physics to guarantee the workings of magic. D&D has the Weave, for example, which is ruled by an intelligent being, Mystra. You can't defy the Wave and do magic, the same you can't defy gravity and still fly. The difference between the natural and the supernatural is a false linguistic one: everything that exists is natural, and everything that doesn't exist doesn't exist.

 

[TheAtreides84]

Depends what you mean by "psi." If you just mean "supernatural," remember that e.g. the Catholic Church literally has a protocol in place for "verifying" the existence of miracles (which they go through before declaring people saints), not to mention still having exorcists trained to expel demons.

Faith healers are still a thing, as is speaking in tongues, and who could forget snake handlers? Plenty of Christians will "pray for someone" with an expectation that it will potentially do something (again, in defiance of a strictly "materialist" understanding). The supernatural is literally baked into the religion (which, after all, worships someone who conducted miraculous healings and rose from the dead).

All of this is in a modern, Christian context, which is a strictly monotheistic religion. Plenty of other religions have even more examples that could fit in well.

And again, the existence of "the Shroud" suggests that psionics are a manifestation of something in another plane of existence. Psionics aren't individual spoon-benders any more; they are literally the manifestations of some sort of WH40k-esque warp entities. It's quite reasonable to imagine that they only choose to contact and "awaken" species with a spiritual mindset (and as long as your government has a spiritual ethos, that means at least some of them are spiritually minded). If you want to fanwank, you can even argue that once the genie is out of the bottle it can't be gotten rid of, but you still need the initial spark (justifying the ability to ethos-shift and keep your psychic powers).

Sure, but what I was saying is that there is no particular reason to reserve PSI to spiritualists. As they can overcome their natural mistrust of uncontrollable spiritual expressions (which includes witches but also mystics and the likes) a materialist culture could simply do experiments on PSI and find it working.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

That's a false problem. In every universe where magic exists, there are rules which can very well be rules of physics to guarantee the workings of magic. D&D has the Weave, for example, which is ruled by an intelligent being, Mystra. You can't defy the Wave and do magic, the same you can't defy gravity and still fly. The difference between the natural and the supernatural is a false linguistic one: everything that exists is natural, and everything that doesn't exist doesn't exist.

Are the Laws of the Is-Not really Laws if they aren't enforced by Judgement, subject to change and alteration? If no principle guides the whims and eddies of how the Is-Not works, can it be codified beyond its categorization as "Is-Not"?

 

[aono]

If I understand the Shroud correctly from the material presented thus far, it would not be a realm with stable rules. If it does, then I would be more inclined to agree with you.

The thing I'm saying is the Shroud presented thus far definitly says Shroud IS a realm with stable rules. It's just not rules we don't actually understand. Maybe we even would not be able to formalize that rules ever. Maybe it's rules such as "there is a sentient creature there, and every his whim became a reality" - well, that IS a rule. Well, as example was already presented - propaganda. There are some stable rules, sure - but you can't predict results with 100% accuracy. But the very existence of propaganda as civilization achievement is based on presupposition such rules exists.
Same for Shroud (or WH40 Warp). There are SOME rules under it, or you can't use it or abilities it gives as a civilization achievement. You need psionic shields to work at least as predictable as "in 25% this component will work, any other it won't". If you have a device/technicque (psionic shield can actually be a chambler where a powerful psion sits and generates field) that will make something REALLY completly random, well...
Even more, if you allow me kind of joke (but it's only a kind of joke). The very mechanic of a game actually demands a Shroud be a reality with stable rules - code written.

The difference between the natural and the supernatural is a false linguistic one: everything that exists is natural, and everything that doesn't exist doesn't exist.

Actually, I'm not a specialist in this particular sphere, but one of my culturologist friend who reseach religion claims it's the very point of the word when it just appeared. It was <s>spiritualists</s> theology shortcut to discern things that not exist. God (christian) and his angels exists so they're natural. Zeus and home spirits do not exist (and they can't exist in a God-created world, well, theology is quite complex science) so they're supernatural.

 

[Rubidium]

If his father isn't a whole host of different warp entities but just an unknown man, his actions will be unpredictable for child as well. But will we call it "unimaginable" or "unpredictable"?

Whether it is imaginable or not, it's not predictable. That's kind of important for trying to predict it.

Well, if every spiritualist in Stellaris actually activly hide their psi abilities and never tell anyone about their experience, yeah, nobody will know about it.
Also you will never have psi as civilization achievement.

Alternatively, if spiritualists don't understand the inner workings of psi, and trying to study them causes them to break down, people will know about it but be unable to replicate it. Remember, materialist isn't just "science rules!", it's a philosophical position that favors the material world and is skeptical of "spiritual" causes. Accepting that there is an entire other plane of spiritual existence (rather than just a bunch of so-called "psychics" lying or a physical property of the species that lets them communicate by pheromones or something) is very much against that philosophy. After all, most of the effects of psi seem like they could, in principle, be reproduced by physical means. An important part of materialism is that they will prefer to focus on those physical means, rather than trying to investigate strange tales of mysterious warp entities.

Quite the opposite. Not "chaos is essentially unpredictable over reasonable time scales", but "a system that's essentially unpredictable over reasonable time scales we called chaos" - if you're speaking about physics/mathematics concept. Nobody actually tells that weather is random - we just don't have instruments to calculate it.
Maybe we never will, but no meteorologist tries to declare weather "supernatural" or "mystical" or, ahm, "non-existing".

It's not random, but it's also not even theoretically possible to calculate it beyond a reasonable time scale, before errors creep in. That's part of the definition of chaos (and it is a defined property; you can calculate whether or not a system is chaotic). More accurate observations/computing power will help, but you do run into a wall, eventually, due to the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. As you say, that's not random, but it is unpredictable (in the long run). Now, we have access to enough observation data and computing power to make short-term predictions (and the benefits are enough that we have invested pretty heavily in doing so). On the other hand, the Shroud is inherently unobservable to non-psychics, and even psychics have to invest pretty heavily for each brief glimpse of it. That's not something you can reasonably observe, which makes predictions essentially impossible. It's Plato's Cave, if someone blocked off the light source 99.9% of the time.

As such, it's not particularly susceptible to organized scientific study, and materialists will generally avoid researching the topic as a dead end. On the other hand, to spiritualists it's inherently attractive (a greater world of spirits, some of whom may claim to be connected to our deity of choice), and so the inherent unpredictability isn't a problem with communing with warp entities.

Select something, please. You can't actually declare both this things at once.
Art/advertising can do predictions or they can't. If they can, well, they can, and then art/advertising is a technology (in my opinion art isn't, advertising is). If they can't, you can't name them "effectively technologized" even "from a game standpoint".

They aren't contradictory. They can do predictions, and those predictions come true often enough to be useful (significantly more often than pure chance, and the payoff when they do is big enough to be worth the attempt), but they are hardly consistently predictable. E.g., if I am a studio executive and have to fund a movie, I can make some predictions as to whether or not the movie will sell (based on things like demographic appeal, track record of similar movies, actors, directors, my impressions of the quality), but I could still end up funding either Titanic or Waterworld. As long as the payoff on the predictions is enough, in aggregate to counterbalance the uncertainty, I'd consider it technologized from a game standpoint.

Spiritualists have an attitude that is sufficiently in harmony with the warp spirits to make the predictions and payoff high enough to count. Materialists (who again, are not just scientists, but "philosophically reluctant to seek spiritual causes") do not.

 

[aono]

Whether it is imaginable or not, it's not predictable. That's kind of important for trying to predict it.

Is it unpredictable in theory, or in practice? Problem just became a problem of getting more data by trial and error.

Remember, materialist isn't just "science rules!", it's a philosophical position that favors the material world and is skeptical of "spiritual" causes.

*sigh*
Please don't. It's often named here, but it's not how game works.
"Immaterial" isn't "spiritual". Heat is immaterial. Numbers are immaterial. Movement is immaterial. Management theories are immaterial. New ways to speak are immaterial. And materialists gain bonus to all this things. They don't get all this "spirits" stuff, because what's spirit? But "extraplanar immaterial creatures with will-shaping powers" are fair play, because why not?
That's what I'm talking before. I'm wholly up to admit that, of course, spiritualistic ethos is tended to create religion and mystical world-view, but it don't means they're stupid fanatics who SHOULD drop any Shroud things because Shroud is not something written in holy book, or that your empire should be blown with religious civil war where one side believes Shroud is God realm, and another claims it's Satan's. But I believe materialists have a right for same decency.

Accepting that there is an entire other plane of spiritual existence (rather than just a bunch of so-called "psychics" lying or a physical property of the species that lets them communicate by pheromones or something) is very much against that philosophy.

Look into materialist ethos description. Please.
No. Entire other plane of non-material existence NOT AGAINST THAT PHILOSOPHY. Gods and spirits are another matter, but not every extraplanar thing is god or spirits. Unbiddens are extraplanar, high five, but materialists don't deny them and don't calls them "gods" or "spirits".
Spiritualists can do it, sure, they can name Unbidden a malevolent gods from great beyond, but for materialist it's just nonsense and trying to give Unbidden something they are not. "There are no "gods", stop call every entitly doing something you can't understand a "god", it's mind-lazyness!"

It's not random, but it's also not even theoretically possible to calculate it beyond a reasonable time scale, before errors creep in. That's part of the definition of chaos (and it is a defined property; you can calculate whether or not a system is chaotic). More accurate observations/computing power will help, but you do run into a wall, eventually, due to the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. As you say, that's not random, but it is unpredictable (in the long run).

I can't get an arguement. You're actually trying to prove my statement that you don't obliged to be able to create full mathematic model and have 100%-accurate rules to study something as a materialist, aren't you?
Yeah, good materialist actually will say here - well, when you get A LOT MORE processing power, A LOT BETTER sensors to discover initial conditions, A LOT MORE data about said conditions and A LOT BETTER math methods, you'll be able to improve predictament power. That's absolutely normal. That's why I offer a variant with dad and ice-cream - the very difference between being able to do predictions or not is just data, not some phylosophical problem in materialistic mindset.

It's Plato's Cave, if someone blocked off the light source 99.9% of the time.

On the other hand, the Shroud is inherently unobservable to non-psychics, and even psychics have to invest pretty heavily for each brief glimpse of it.

Yes. That means it's Plato's Cave for spiritualists as well as for materialists. And it is, nobody arguing it! Current events definitly written with presupposition that Shroud isn't something that spiritualists actually precieve and declare it's existence until they ascend and actually "seen" it. It's not as some entity came to them and tells about it, giving instructions to follow.

They aren't contradictory. They can do predictions, and those predictions come true often enough to be useful (significantly more often than pure chance, and the payoff when they do is big enough to be worth the attempt), but they are hardly consistently predictable.

I'm sorry, what's consistently? I'd be a nitpick, but it's the very point in your arguementation here, so I don't believe it's just "arguing semanthics".
Thing is, consistent is "with a certanty enough to use here". When you're saying "the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is 3.14159" - is it correct? Oh no, it isn't. Can you ever define this ratio with a definite decimal? No. Is it consistent prediction for any given circle? Well, in most spheres it is.
If they can do predictions, and this predictions are useful enough to make decisions - they ARE consistent. And that's what make technology possible.
And that's how any science and technology works.

Materialists (who again, are not just scientists, but "philosophically opposed to seeking spiritual causes") do not.

Once again, I'll ask a question nobody actually could give me an answer here. What's "spiritual cause"? For sure, including materialists takes a bonus to Society research (such as propaganda or adversment, by the way), in-game it's not "immaterial cause". There is very major point - you're talking abour clauses that MATERIALISTS are "phylosophically opposed", so materialists should at least know what's they opposed!

 

[Derp]

Heat is immaterial.

No it isn't, if you get something this basic wrong then there's not much else to say

 

[aono]

No it isn't, if you get something this basic wrong then there's not much else to say

Please, show me a photo of one kg of heat. Or, maybe, we returns to caloric theory from enegry-based one?