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"Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? These qualities are what [make] science fiction ...unique."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Thought Pattern Divination | ||
| Attempting to construct the thoughts of a person by imitating their actions. |
The Iszic were fanatical in their determination to protect their intellectual property - the seeds of their amazing house trees and other products.
| One phase of the surveillance puzzled Farr. He approached the lieutenant and indicated an operative a few yards away. “Why does he mimic me? I sit down, he sits down. I drink, he drinks. I scratch my nose, he scratches his nose.”
“A special technique,” explained the Szecr. “We divine the pattern of your thinking.” “It won’t work,” said Farr. The lieutenant bowed. “Farr Sainh may be quite correct.” Farr smiled indulgently. “Do you seriously think you can predict my plans?” “We can only do our best.” “This afternoon I plan to rent a sea-going boat. Were you aware of that?” The lieutenant produced a paper. “I have the charter ready for you. It is the Lhaiz, and I have arranged a crew...” |
| Technovelgy from The Houses of Iszm,
by Jack Vance. Published by Better Publications in 1954 Additional resources -
|
A similar method was detailed in Niven and Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye; an individual alien assigned to learn everything about an individual person. See Fyunch(click)
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'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
