What does telepathic communicate mean?

[Doctor D&D]

Sorry if this has been asked because but I was wondering what they mean by communicating telepathically. Does this mean transmitting images and emotions or just transmitting sounds.

If it is transmitting sounds then why don't you need to share a language?

Thanks for the help guys.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Sorry if this has been asked because but I was wondering what they mean by communicating telepathically. Does this mean transmitting images and emotions or just transmitting sounds.

If it is transmitting sounds then why don't you need to share a language?

Thanks for the help guys.

It means two minds are communicating to one another using pure thought. You don't need to share a language because your not speaking, though it may be perceived as such. Sign language is talking with your hands, telepathy is talking with your mind.

[Voice of Reason]

So far as I know, this is not covered definitely in any of the books, although it is possible that it's mentioned casually in the text of some sourcebook I don't have. The way I imagine it to work is that you communicate your thoughts, but no pictures or emotions. Language is a construct of creatures for communicating thoughts. Telepathy conveys your thoughts directly to your target's mind such that he/she/it can understand what you intend, rather than the normal means of having to decode the language to get at what you are thinking. Your ability to commune telepathically with the creature is still dependent on its ability to comprehend your thoughts (I.E., it's intelligence) but not on it's ability to form or understand language.

[Keld Denar]

A way to look at it is that pure thought doesn't have a language. Your mind translates thoughts to words, and then you speak the words, another being hears them, and then translates them from words back into thoughts. Telepathy cuts out the middleman, and goes straight from thoughts to thoughts. I'd imagine this can convey emotions and images that can't even be translated into words, but are much simpler as pure thoughts.

[GolemsVoice]

I've always imagined that the receiver's mind automatically translates what it receives into the receiver's own language. The classic "voice in your head", onthe voice is generated by the receiving brain to represent the signals.

[Eldariel]

A way to look at it is that pure thought doesn't have a language. Your mind translates thoughts to words, and then you speak the words, another being hears them, and then translates them from words back into thoughts.

While...it is possible to think in ideas and images, we tend to think through language. Language and the elements it possesses or lacks determines much about our thinking and comprehension of various things. Granted, this is mostly a side effect of consummately learning our first language as a kid, but as just about everybody does, that's somewhat besides the point.

And people not learning languages in a young age really don't think like we do at all; we've got those examples of the "wolf children"; they never learn to speak properly, among other things.

[Snake-Aes]

That's all meta... as far as the game is concerned, Telepathic Communication transmits complete reasoning and abstraction.It also usually bypasses language.

When it's just emotions they call it empathic instead of telepathic.

[Doctor D&D]

That's all meta... as far as the game is concerned, Telepathic Communication transmits complete reasoning and abstraction.It also usually bypasses language.

When it's just emotions they call it empathic instead of telepathic.

But we think in words.....
So it could be a babblefish type or it converts to something universal that all minds understand.
If you transmit images to a creature that precieves the world in scent then how would that work?
Empathic doesn't really mean emotion. Emotive is emotion's adjective, used to describe sentira art of the Quori and other psi stuff. Empathic means like pain, like empathic transfer. That the opinion I got at least.

[Snake-Aes]

But we think in words.....
So it could be a babblefish type or it converts to something universal that all minds understand.
If you transmit images to a creature that precieves the world in scent then how would that work?
Empathic doesn't really mean emotion. Emotive is emotion's adjective, used to describe sentira art of the Quori and other psi stuff. Empathic means like pain, like empathic transfer. That the opinion I got at least.

That's actually a really big deal on the more study of our brain. We don't think in words until we actually learn them, and our language core is separate enough that we can actually remove someone's capability to process words and he'll still act with the usual coherence(plus probably being pissed off at no longer being able to read,write or speak). This means that while we use words to organize our thoughts, we still think without words. Creating such a difference doesn't add anything to the game from my experience, so we just roll along with language-less communication as far as telepathy is concerned.

[Doctor D&D]

That's actually a really big deal on the more study of our brain. We don't think in words until we actually learn them, and our language core is separate enough that we can actually remove someone's capability to process words and he'll still act with the usual coherence(plus probably being pissed off at no longer being able to read,write or speak). This means that while we use words to organize our thoughts, we still think without words. Creating such a difference doesn't add anything to the game from my experience, so we just roll along with language-less communication as far as telepathy is concerned.

Hmm I think you have things a bit muddled here. Aphagia can be expressive (Broca's) or receptive (Wernicke's) or both. You seem to referring to Broca's aphagia where the person (usually stroke patient) cannot express himself either by writing or speech. They become frustrated because they know there is problem.
Wernicke's aphagia is where you don't process language. Your speech is fluent but nonsensical. It is debatable it these people are thinking normally since we have no way to determine that (mental status exam requires patient communication).

Global aphagia is even more unknow if the person can "think right" and is usually diagnosed as "stroke induced dementia".

So the question of if we can think without language is a tough one sine we have no other way to look into someone's brain but language.

[Snake-Aes]

So the question of if we can think without language is a tough one sine we have no other way to look into someone's brain but language.

That might be it, I apologize.

But telepaths do exactly that... look into someone's brain. Who's to say they didn't catch that? :p (recent experimenting allowed rough images to be implanted directly on someone's visual cortex, dunno about the other way around)

Anyway, the most important part of my statement is that such a difference never really added to our game. As far as telepathy was concerned it was always reading directly from someone's brain so you get their direct memories and experiences as if they were our own. It even specifically lets you bypass language sometimes(like Mind Probe for reading and Mindlink for chatting). As far as the game is concerned, our thoughts are independent from language.

[Doctor D&D]

Well given how vague it is I'm wondering what limits are on it. If you mindlink and then seperate, it would it act as a wallie talkie or like Pain's rinnigan? It's a big difference IMO.

[Snake-Aes]

Well given how vague it is I'm wondering what limits are on it. If you mindlink and then seperate, it would it act as a wallie talkie or like Pain's rinnigan? It's a big difference IMO.

mindlink specifically is coherent enough: You can only communicate. It's a transcendental walkie-talkie.

[Keld Denar]

While...it is possible to think in ideas and images, we tend to think through language. Language and the elements it possesses or lacks determines much about our thinking and comprehension of various things. Granted, this is mostly a side effect of consummately learning our first language as a kid, but as just about everybody does, that's somewhat besides the point.

Given enough time though, you can give a complete, detailed description of a place or a feeling. Thats mostly hindered because you have to come up with words to describe it all. Since you are translating from thoughts to words and back to thoughts again, there is no reason why you couldn't send images or emotions through telepathy.

[Optimystik]

Well, Mindlink is telepathic communication, and it doesn't need a language, so I've always used that as the baseline.