On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 8:35 AM, Freelance Traveller <editor@freelancetraveller.com> wrote:

On Sun, 5 Oct 2014 03:11:52 -0400, Richard Aiken <raikenclw@gmail.com>
wrote:

>If death really is
>The End - Period - then the body is nothing more than so much rotting meat.
>Right?

Perhaps. But consider the possibility that with the idea that the body
and the 'self' are inextricably linked, and the status of the former
accurately reflects the status of the latter, the idea may arise that
preserving the body preserves the 'self', and thus reanimation - and
restoration of the loved one - may be possible.

Perhaps at first. But - unless there were at least a few such reanimations - that would rather quickly pass into legend, wouldn't it? You can get away with a belief in an afterlife that nobody can prove or disprove. It would be rather a bit harder to sustain a widespread belief in reanimated loved ones when you lack any to show off.

Of course, you could have the occassional honest mistake (someone who comes out of a short-lived coma for example) or deliberate fraud. But I find it hard to credit such a belief lasting very long, on a widespread basis, as originally conceived. The early Christian Church confidently expected Christ to return next Tuesday, at the latest. When he kept failing to show, the belief system was forced to change.

This could lead also to
the ultimate development of medical knowledge and technology.

By searching for a way to really make it happen? Perhaps. But I can see the reverse, as well. Medical knowledge was retarded in RL by a Christian prohibition on disecting corpses, since the body was the temple of God. I can see a version of the same belief arising, since in this case the belief is that the body is the "temple of the soul." Preserving it intact (or as close to intact as possible) would be the goal, after all. The Egyptians were able to get away with putting the major organs into canoptic jars because they had really screwy ideas of what was important and what wasn't. However, I think the obvious lack of success over time (even false "proofs" of successful reanimation would have to be rare) would lead to the discrediting of the belief in the possibility of success, long before anyone discovered the scientific method.

Unless - of course - we postulate that a successful use of some sort of Special power could actually reanimate a dead body. But in that case, the impetus would be to further develop said Special power, rather than to discover and expand upon mundane means of doing the same.

Definitely an error of understanding; see comment above. When you're
exercising "self-control", what is it that's doing the controlling?

But would there be such a concept as "self- control," as we understand it? Wasn't it the belief that "base urges" came from the body's animal nature and that one's ability to resist these were a matter of a pure spirit defeating them that originally created the concept? If the body and the spirit are one indivisible entity, from where would the Vilani get the idea that there was a "self" which was external to an individuals desires?

>And of the continuing fact that a rather irritating opponent of the Third
>Imperium (the Zhodani Consulate) has built their entire culture on the
>understanding and use of psionics.

Yes - but the Zhodani influence was part of the reason for the reaction
to the experiment in the first place.

My point was that it - and the Imperial propaganda based upon it - is a continuing influence, continually reinforcing popular fear of psi.

Remember, you and I are dealing with the translated terms. If the
Solomani that made first contact with the Vilani did in fact miss the
nuances of difference between 'bilanidin' and 'bilanii', we'd have the
semantic situation that we do in fact have in canon - that is, both
terms would get translated the same way. Also, remember that we're also
post-Suppressions; in the MODERN Vilani system, the Bilanii - the psis -
would necessarily be a very secret caste, and might well choose to hide
'behind' the shugilii, since there IS that fit.

I would say that the hiding would have had to start much earlier than with the Suppressions. I'm one of those who believe that the "Solomani conquest" was more accurately a rebellion by fringe provinces and client states of the Siru Zirka, which the Solomani managed to ride into power. If Vilani psionics were still out in the open during the First Imperium period, the Solomani would have had to have been willfully blind to miss them. Now, I can see this happening at first - Solomani Admiral to Client State Envoy: "What do you mean the Vilani Governor can magically heal bullet wounds? Get out of here!" - but after the first few years of the Interstellar Wars period, I just don't see the blindness continuing.