Asimov Energy

Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winter 1955

I've been investigating old science fiction stories about telepathy. Back in January, I read "Cosmic Engineers" by Clifford Simak and speculated about the possible influence of that story on Asimov. More recently, I blogged about Jack Vance's story "Parapsyche", which surprised me by the seriousness which Vance seemed to lavish on paranormal phenomena such as telepathy.

Telepathic Space Aliens
I finally read Isaac Asimov's story "The Portable Star" from Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winter 1955 (download). As described here, Asimov was not proud of "The Portable Star".

in the Ekcolir Reality

I have to wonder if years of guilt over having published "The Portable Star" contributed to Asimov's later creation of The Gods Themselves, the first science fiction story by Asimov that I ever read.

In "The Portable Star", 4 vacationing Earthlings land on a planet and tangle with telepathic space aliens. After a night on the planet, one of the Earthlings says, "We're being watched. I'm sure of it."

In the issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories where "The Portable Star" was published, Asimov also included a time line for his "Future History" of human expansion from Earth to other worlds of the galaxy:

interior illustration for "The Portable Star"

"The Portable Star" and "Blind Alley" were unusual in that these two stories featured aliens in Asimov's "all human galaxy". Asimov would later add Nemesis as a novel in which aliens were able to communicate telepathically with humans.

In "The Portable Star", 4 humans land their spaceship on an inhospitable world, Sigmaringen IV. The image to the left shows a scene from the start of the story. The telepathic "energy beings" who reside on Sigmaringen IV begin "experimenting" on the 4 humans... playing with their minds.

ignition

Sci Fi plot elements such as faster-than-light travel, time travel and telepathy are simply too much fun. Story tellers can't resist using fantastic technologies such as "warp drive" and time travel machines. Within science fiction, there are two different types of human telepathy: 1) technology-assisted telepathy and 2) "natural" telepathy that is made possible by the inherent structure of our biological brains.

In "The Portable Star", Asimov quickly moves to the fringe of hard science fiction by stating that the natives of Sigmaringen IV are "energy beings". In practical terms, making use of "energy beings" allows a Sci Fi author to quickly move a short story along... no explanation must be provided for how an alien mind and a human mind might be telepathically linked. In Western literature, there is a long tradition of imaginary non-material beings that can "read the minds" of humans. I suspect that Asimov spent very little time writing "The Portable Star".

in the Ekcolir Reality

After getting his 4 human guinea pigs into trouble on Sigmaringen IV, Asimov needed a quick and convenient way to get them safely back home. Asimov reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out an old plot element from his story "Nightfall". The poor "energy beings" of Sigmaringen IV have never seen stars. When they "see" some burning hydrogen gas, the "energy beings" freak out and loose their telepathic grip on the humans, allowing them to escape from Sigmaringen IV.

Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death? No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no. One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?" "Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be." -Isaac Asimov in The Roving Mind. see also

cover by Donald Brautigam

"Potential" by Isaac Asimov 
A 1983 story about telepathy by Asimov was called "Potential". For "Potential", Asimov crafted a story in which a boy (Roland) with telepathic powers is able to make telepathic connections to the "minds" of social insects such as bees.

In "Potential", I suspect that Asimov was suggesting that the positronic computer MULTIVAC could also telepathically communicate with Roland. For "Potential", Asimov "explained" Ronald's telepathic powers by saying that he had a special combination of genes that gave him his telepathic abilities. Somehow (by telepathy?), MULTIVAC knew that Ronald had telepathic abilities. With practice, Ronald's telepathic powers are getting stronger.

the Asimov Reality

Telepathic Robots
As far as I know, Asimov never really tried to explain why a few "spontaneously-arising" telepathic positronic brains could telepathically communicate with humans. He vaguely suggested that Daneel could detect the electric fields from human brains and thus "read their minds".

In the Exode Saga, there is both "natural telepathy" and technology-assisted telepathy. For A Search Beyond, the Asimov Reality Simulator must be searched for clues to the origins of human telepathy, but among those who are carrying out the search, there is confusion about the mechanism of telepathy. In Deep Time, much effort had gone into evolving humans with twitino-mediated telepathy, then a shift was needed, turning towards use of the Bimanoid Interface for technology-assisted technology.

in the Buld Reality
original cover art by Kinuko Craft

Oxypathin
The Asterothropes were a human variant that was artificially evolved by R. Gohrlay so as to have twitino-mediated telepathy. Asterothrope females were designed to give birth to large numbers of children, speeding the spread of Asterothropes through the galaxy. Asterothropes had a variant of the hormone oxytocin that was called oxypathin. Oxypathin activated the Asterothrope neurons that were involved in twitino-mediated telepathy. While breastfeeding, Asterothrope mothers trained their children in the use of telepathy. According to Zeta, some other human variants such as the tryp'At also have the oxypathin gene and a special transport system for making sure that large amounts of oxypathin can 1) cross the blood-brain barrier, 2) get into breast milk and 3) be absorbed by the GI tract of children.

The tryp'At Guide to Oxypathin

After Zeta told me about oxypathin, I discovered that Nora's infites contain additional information about the genes that allowed Aterothropes to have telepathic abilities. Additional special Asterothrope genes included a receptor with high affinity for oxypathin.

source

That receptor was only expressed in the brain. There were also several genes for components of a signal transduction system that linked those receptors to the intracellular organelles involved in twitino-mediated telepathy (telastids).

"Mind Clone Epidemic" by Izhiun

The remaining question is if that oxypathin system was later adapted to provide the tryp'At with access to the Bimanoid Interface. If so, then Earthlings such as Rylla may be able to make use of chemicals like oxypathin to enhance the functioning of the Mind Clone telepathic network.

Zeta suspects that there are cholinergic neurons that function as the receptor cells in the brain capable of responding to oxypathin and subsequently activating the femtobots of the Bimanoid Interface. Those cholinergic neurons are what allow nicotine to play a special role in boosting human telepathic abilities.
More telepathic aliens: The Deep
Related Reading: Solaris
Next: investigating the origins of Rylla

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