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Ps to Pz

Pseudoclarketech

Technology that in all ways pretends to be, or appears to be, clarketech, but, although advanced, still shows itself to be amenable to study and reverse engineering

M.Alan Kazlev

Pseudolazurogen

pseudolazurogen (noun) pseudolazurogenic (adj.) a neogenic reconstruction that appears to be based on an actual historical species clade, but on closer inspection is shown to reflect popular opinions and mythology. e.g. Clade Cromag is a classic example of a pseudolazurogenic prim

M Alan Kazlev

psionics

Controversial field that combines psychology, psychic studies, and and speculation on quantum physics to attempt to develop devices that enhance the natural psi powers of a biont or vec mind. Since the results are not easily, or even, reproducible, it is debatable whether this is a true science.

Psitech

Psionic Technology. The design and development of technology to reproduce or enhance the psionic abilities of the biont or vec mind.

The development of sophisticated biofeedback, direct neural interfaces, and other forms of direct mind-tech interaction in no way satisfied the dreams of some eccentric visionaries, neo-nuagers, technoshamans, cyberyogis, and voudoutronic occultists

Psionic devices are generally nano-, pico- or even femto- in nature, and may include artifacts left by ascended or transcended beings or high toposophic minds. It is suggested that these devices can or could amplify the natural quantum-scale psychokinetic effect of ordinary brain neuronal microtubule activity into something that can be harassed on a macroscopic scale. However, such technology has proved frustratingly elusive, and many of the most spectacular claims have turned out on closer inspection to be the result of fakery and clever use of conventional nanotech.

Areas of development include probability modifiers, psionic weaponry, mind-control devices, telepathy probes, dream scanners, and collective mind interface. Since the results are not easily, or even, reproducible, it is debatable how valid such tech is.

Nevertheless, it is widely believed, especially among the disenfranchised, that there exist among hider cultures, or in the less travelled regions of the outer volumes, and even among postulated alien races beyond the periphery of colonised space, cultures and clades that have mastered the use of psionic ultratech, and acquired powers equal even to that of the archailects Themselves.

The following table is intended as an approximate and tentative framework for the various grades of info-tech advancement. (read from bottom to top)

Technological level	Advances
Plancktech	Hypofemtotech entities - planck scale
Femtotech	Femtotech entities - working with subatomic probability
Picotech	Psychokinetic natural and synthetic neuronal nanotech used at sub-atomic / quantum scale - low to medium reliability, high novelty
Nanotech	Psychokinetic nanotech - organic manipulators - natural and synthetic neuronal very low reliability, high novelty - more advanced pyschotronics - very experimental and unreliable, yet with some amazing effects (magickal engineering, voodootronics, etc)
Info Age - Miniaturization	meditation, simple bio-feedback, etc etc - some basic (but very limited) Pyschotronics
Industrial revolution - Macro-scale industries	Parapsychology. growth of secular era allows access to different spiritual, esoteric, and occult traditions.
Bronze Age - Iron Age	religion, occultism, mysticism, etc
Stone Age	Animism, shamanism, etc - (quite potent but intuitive rather than tech)
No civilisation or worked materials	intuitive instinct, animal psychic sense, etc

M. Alan Kazlev

psyche

The inner, subjective world of a sentient or sophont being; the field of individual consciousness, including both conscious and unconscious mind

psychic

[1] pertaining to the psyche

[2] unusual or paranormal or paraphysical powers, siddhis, etc (also referred to as psi)

psychic phenomena

supposed paranormal phenomenon, such as apparitions, auras, dousing, levitation, poltergeist activity, premonitions, out-of-body travel, spiritual mediums, and spirit recordings, that cannot be reduced to or explained in terms of hallucination or error, or picotech or femtotech devices. As with paranormal in general, there is debate among whether or not this is valid phenomena. See also spiritualist phenomenon

Psychodynamician

helps optimize bionts' thoughts and feelings: preventive psychiatry

Keith Halperin

Psychohistory

The science of historical prediction and macrosocial manipulation.

The main thesis of psychohistory is that the action of trillions of individuals take on a fluidity and predictability which can be compared to that of molecules in a gas. The very size of the population being dealt with factors out individual peculiarities and allows the prediction of its behavior. With the ability to predict the reaction of a population to a particular stimulus comes the ability to memetically manipulate that population, for example through a combination of public relations/advertising techniques and behavioural science. As far back as the middle Consolidation period, simulation experiments by independent institutes, including the Cislunar Wilber Institute, the Perl School of Sub-Singularity Psychology, Corona, and the Institute of Long-Range Cliology, Eklund ISO, have decisively confirmed the validity of the science, but the number of disruptive variables in any community open to its environment were shown to increase exponentially as a value of time, rendering long-range real world prediction impractical even given a nebula-brain processing capacity.

Psychologist

One who studies and practices psychology, especially for the purpose of aiding other sophont beings.

As well as understanding the workings of the mind in general, and assessment of an individual's ability, personality, and expected behavior under specific conditions, psychology is very useful in the treatment of the mentally or emotionally disturbed, in counselling, and in helping to maintain the well-being of a crew on an isolated orbital or deep space ship. Most psychologists tend to be superbright or transapient entities. Many ai show a good aptitude in psychology

modified by M.Alan Kazlev from the original write-up by Robert J. Hall

Psychology

The study of sentient consciousness behavior under a variety of conditions and understanding its causes as a result of physical, biological, and social factors.

Areas of study include cognition and personality, physiological and sensory bases of behavior, cybertelepathy and affinity perception, developmental and social psychology, comparative psychology, psychoanalysis and depth psychology, xenopsychology, and an understand (or attempt thereof) of higher toposophic minds.

modified by M.Alan Kazlev from the original write-up by Robert J. Hall

Psychophager

"soul eater" - generic term for ahuman ai that not only use slaved bionts as subsumed bioprocessing nodes, but pump them with synhormones and memetic suggestions to ensure maximum terror and adrenalin (and hence greatest efficiency).

Bionts captured by psychophagers rarely last more than a few years in their original form, but are then replaced by identical cloned copies, or modified to ensure greater sustainability. Not surprisingly, psychophagers are among the most despised of all transapient ai (at least among bionts)

M. Alan Kazlev

psychrophile

An organism that requires or prefers cold for growth and metabolism. A type of extremophile.

Common on some Europan planets and moons; in rare instances even evolve an intelligent star-faring civilization (the Muuh being the only known current example.)

Pspyder

Colony lifeform native to the planet Trees

Ptaphric Magic Potter

Zoeific-MPA godlet, late Re-evaluation age to early Central Alliance Period, author of several thousand species of sentient lifeforms.

Although eir creations vary widely, from splices based on combinations of actual terragen or alien lifeforms, to totally mythological or fabulous beings, all have in common the fact that they are physiologically impractical outside special environments, and ill-adjusted to life in the civilized galaxy. For example, the Sweet Syrup Angel People (not to be confused with the higher successful angel clade) have relatively tiny wings (wingspan less than body height) and diminutive pectoral muscles that make it impossible for them to fly in even lunar gravity. In addition they can only eat a special form of nanofabricated glucose. The Green and Blue Spotted Wifflepiffles have exaggerated sexual organs (often up to a third of total body mass) that are decorated with green and blue polka dots. And so on. The Potter was fated upon by galactic high society and the big media corps, who were impressed with the novelty and entertainment value of eir creations. Answering eir critics, and in keeping with eir MPA heritage, the Potter considered the act of creation to be challenge enough. During the Central Alliance Period the Potter announced that e had grown bored with creating neogens of this nature, and merged with a passing ISO known as Darwin's Konstant. While some of eir species died out, many others were preserved, sometimes with the help of enthusiastic S<1 biologists, anthropologists, and culture vultures.

M.Alan Kazlev

Pteranodon People

Human-Pterosaur neogen-splice created by the Ptaphric Magic Potter

Standing about 1.5 meters tall, they resemble a slightly built baseline hominid but with a crested and beaked reptilian head, clawed feet, and a wingspan of some 6 meters. However, their flight muscles are too weak to lift their body in anything more than lunar gravity. Most can be found in a specially designed giant Bernal Sphere in orbit around Vann Ranton's Star (Haeckel Sector, Zoeific Biopolity).

M.Alan Kazlev

Pterosaur

Flying archosaurian reptile, native to the Mesozoic era of Old Earth.

A number of actual and neogenous species have been lazurogened. The so-called "Pteranodon People" are actually pterosaur-human neogens, rather than true lazurogenic pterosaurs

M.Alan Kazlev

Pu Ylong

[3823 - 8102) Penglaiese superbright nearbaseline-bioborg, neotaoist philosopher, architect, playwright, ailife designer, artisan, musician, historian, physicist, xenologist, archailectologian and habitat designer

M.Alan Kazlev

pulp hero

Heroic yet caricature-like artificial biont created according to stylized and absurdly one-dimensional fashions of pop-culture

For as long as sapient beings have existed there has been the need for the popular or "pulp hero", the unrealistic flawless hero, the hero with polished teeth and a strong jaw, surrounded by a cast of characters that have no purpose but to either support or hinder the hero. Originally part of a simple archetypal narrative to entertain the common folk, a fable of mythologies, oral folklore, hardpaper novels, 2D cinema and TV, interactive virch, idorus, and 3D, in the civilized galaxy pulp heroes were given actual physical existence, first in dramatic morality plays being acted out by transapient beings for the benefit of sapients, but also as public entertainers that are hired out to polities for simple public entertainment.

Unlike superheros, pulp heroes do not have exceptional powers, although their physical; strength and cunning may be developed to a high degree. Much of their ability depends on what seems like outrageous dumb luck, but is actually a cunning use of nano or even picotech (much more rarely femtotech) utility fog and and micro-angelnetting

Sometimes one finds an entire zooeum with a whole collection of steely-eyed heroes, to tempt/taunt/tease the baselines into heroics, all the more heroic due to their relatively frail condition....

Peter Kisner, M.Alan Kazlev and John B

pulsar

A rapidly rotating neutron star with a strong magnetic field, observed to emit pulses of radiation. Useful as an energy source in some megascale engineering projects, weylforges, etc

Pumping

Cheap augmentation process which involves the nearbaseline "pumping" eir genome with so much su templates that they become almost-su, but without the integral cohesion, talent and ability of the su.

Such pseudo-superiors - variously called psuuds, suddies, or sooboos - generally develop mild to (occasionally) severe physical and psychological dysfunction. Not having the ability to rectify the problem, or the resources to employ someone who can, they add to the human refuse pile of galactic civilization, some even ending up in sewerslums and other uncivilized free zones rather than submit to a painful process of genome flushing.

M.Alan Kazlev

pun wars

Especially among clades who are very serious about elegance of verbal/written/virched communication - for which the act of communication is an art - a pun attack will be a really reprehensible thing - far more abhorrent than an attack with actual physical weapons

the advantage of pun wars is that even a simple subturing expert system can mathematically generate and insert puns - but the true masters of punning will of course be the hyperturings and po who have made the creation of really awful puns into a supreme art

similar things come to mind:

cliche wars
oxymoron wars
sloppy code wars( e.g. Part of a version war, a minor joke among combatants, was the programming language: C++++++ with whipped cream and sprinkles.)
and - horror of horrors - really crappy virchmovie plot wars!

Not to mention the really crappy horror virchmovies. Early on a lot of the intellectual property rights of old b-movies were bought up by various media corps. Some of these were used to produce successful sequels, but there were several abject failures. The Muks Lingar Corporation, for example, produced the virch of "Manos II: Idle Hands are Fateful Hands". This work was found by most baseline and near baseline viewers to paradoxically be at once boring beyond belief and yet impossible to tear away from. Manos II was months later revealed to be part of an S2 cultural/memetic sabotage against certain "retro" segments of the populace which E viewed as undesirable.

of course there are some Pozen masters who have taken the very worst puns, cliche's and plotlines they could find and made them into koans. But only an S>2 pozen master can do that really well

Though used as weapons even an SI:1 can come up with puns that will cause baselines to groan themselves to death should they "get" it. This is one way that AIs can limit intelligence within a population: anyone with the intelligence or knowledge to understand the joke either laughs emself to death or finds eir chest and abdominal muscles perpetually clenched up in an ultra-disappointed groan (depending on the pun). Alternately the horror of the pun could be a memetic weapon that powerfully disillusions lesser sentients against certain types of beliefs and understanding (sort of like en or pozen, but evil).

Peter Kisner and M.Alan Kazlev

The Puppis Democracy

non-aligned tweak empire that emerged during the version war period

Some still linked worlds in the vicinity of the garish red supergiant Pi Puppis had begun cooperating during the isolation in the aftermath of the Version War. They began to extend their wormholes outwards, not caring much for which side the systems had had before the war. Around 7100 the emerging network set up its own mini-federation, the Puppis Democracy. Eventually it reconnected to the main wormhole nexus, but at that point few of the member worlds had any interest in returning to their old empires (if they still existed). Instead the Puppis Democracy remained, attracting several other non-aligned worlds (the only defection was the local members of Metasoft, who returned to the Version Tree). A few member worlds still have close ties to their parent empires (such as the Ale and Ke-Steel systems which belonged to the NoCoZo and the predominantly Sophic Wilde).

The NoCoZo has for a long time been making overtures to the Democracy to join it, but so far there has been little interest. The other main neighbour, the Adara Trade Treaty has been more cold.

Their symbol is a stylized star as seen by the compound eyes of the Ale tweaks.

Anders Sandberg

Pure Joy

"Pure Joy" is a sub-memeset found in the Laughter Hegemony, which is somewhat in low-grade rebellion against the overarching memeset.

For contrast, the Laughter Hegemony states that beings gain their skills, implants, and power based on their awarded karma. Those who follow Pure Joy, however, note that the results of a given action or set of actions are often not checked over a long enough baseline. Therefore, short-term beneficial actions may be awarded, and the sophont in question may garner significant benefits, before the long term repercussions come home to roost.

The more thoughtful of the mainstream Laughter Hegemony have noted this, and have made several significant improvements in their systems of rewards to better handle this kind of problem, yet the Pure Joy personnel appear to be unswayed from their position. The Pure Joy movement members appear to wish that certain general enhancements be performed for all members of the society - specifically communications and longevity-protecting enhancements. This is justified as being required to properly attribute earned karma over any reasonable timescale. However, the Pure Joy members are quick to point out that this does not fully address the issues of negative karma coming to rest on dissolute/nonexistent members of the polity over extensive periods of time...

John B

$Category: Math$ Pure Mathematics

The exploration of the elegant properties of numbers, expressions, and geometries according to a well-defined and often elaborate set of rules.

Very popular with many ai clades, and developed in myriad ways, especially among the Panvirtuality, Diamond Network, Objectivist Commonwealth, and many Sephirotic ai. Contrast with Applied Mathematics

Purine

A nitrogen-containing, single-ring, basic compound that occurs in terragen nucleic acids. The purines in DNA and RNA are adenine and guanine.

PuYlong Ring

A quasi-living field of planetary ring material.

Discovered by the Edenese exploration vessel Carlsagentheyounger in 11670, the Ring is a 50 km wide collection of 2-3 cm diameter gallium silicide nodules trapped in the ring system of the Eujovian Type planet PuYlong II [Sagittarius Outer Volumes]. The fragments are held together by a weak electrostatic field, which appears to respond to external electrical stimulus in very complex ways. Explanations range from it being a natural presophont life form, an interesting but non-sentient natural phenomenon, a forgotten ai experiment, or the creation of the Yikoh, who are known to have constructed vaguely similar structures. Despite several centuries of occasional research, scientists today are still no closer to understanding the nature of the Ring.

M.Alan Kazlev (inspired by concept by Kevin Self)

Puysha-Para

Advanced Sophic cyborg ashram civilization, polity and partial dysonic M-class star system.

They are connected to the Nexus and the Beamrider network and helped the Anandayannas gather allies for the Anandayanna-Uvartarasha War (Kuranaba is about 25 LY distant). Population is 123 million sophonts.

M Alan Kazlev

Pyrimidine

A nitrogen-containing, single-ring, basic compound that occurs in terragen nucleic acids. The pyrimidines in DNA are cytosine and thymine. The pyrimidines in RNA are cytosine and uracil.

Pythagoras (c.580/570-c.500 b.c.e.)

Presocratic philosopher, Old Earth.

Founder of a major school of religious philosophy that emphasized the mystical interconnections in numbers, nature, and the human soul, on the basis of geometric ratios, musical chords, etc. He considered the natural and the ethical world to be inseparable. Pythagoras had a great influence on later thinkers, including Plato and Kepler. His vision of correspondences in the natural and spiritual world, albeit greatly modified, are still influential in parts of the Sophic League today

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