Sadly, I haven’t read “Specialist.”

So could other emotions that humans experience in a far more complex way than animals (love, pity, humor, anger, pride, curiosity, greed…) also be used as sources of energy?

I guess I’m wondering, Why doubt and fear? Why not some positive emotions?

Because doubt and fear are integral to the creative drive, which is inherently restless, abhoring vacuums?

Because they’re more dramatic, and the task at hand is to write compelling fiction?

Someone I know likes to say that “people are motivated by two things: fear and greed.” I like to think we’re more complex than that and that carrots are more motivating than sticks.

I’m wondering too if imagining alternative realities, or even just imagining what we’re going to do tomorrow, things that dogs can’t do, are emotive or abstract parts of human thinking? I mean, dogs can’t do math, either.

Sorry, I tend to ramble….

The smarter you get the MORE doubt and fear you have!

I don’t see doubt and fear as negative qualities, but rather as essential human qualities, they come with empathy and an ability to imagine other realities.

That’s what Sheckley was getting at.

Although I am having yet another “bad hair day” in the lab…. I am convinced through a profound enlightenment in my speculative research linking “teleportation and sneezing”…. that given sufficient quantities of highly specialized and refined detergents that all of us can literally “sneeze” our way to a new and wonderful world…. what extraordinary freedom and stability awaits us! …. not necessairly through “teleportation,” rather “possible teleportation.” Perhaps this sounds naive and all too idealistic for the lackluster positivist sciences…. yet I believe that Professor Einstein himself would immediately see the refreshing spontaneity and vitality of this seemingly absurd vision…. Einstein being certainly familiar with the great parisian tobacconists classic snuff preparations…. Indeed, this highly speculative research will perhaps ignite once and for all a spontaneous energy that will ultimately direct us to a true and dearly beloved teleportation!…. forever grounded in the eternal romanticism and sensibility of the great mystics…. fear not Professor!

—- Dr. Quackenbush [aka linus]

But so as not to be a partypooper, let me suggest ways in which they might do this.

1) Let’s say that the mental universe created by sentient beings, like the physical universe, is distorted by very strong emotion, volition, or thought, in the same way that physical bodies distort the fabric of space/time a la Einstein.

That being the case, silps could simply “roll” down the incline created by that distortion. A kind of psychic gravity.

2) Let’s say the beings in the hyloxic web are all connected by the lines of force they create, like the lines of force created by electromagnetism. These lines of force are not only connections, but pathways. They can attract and repel.

3) It might be akin to a spider’s web: a spider feels a vibration on it’s web, and travels toward that vibration, being careful to travel on the non-sticky axes of the web. The vibration being intense mental activity. Would more potent silps prey on the less potent ones?

4) We can always fall back on parallel dimensions or the infinite worlds posited by string theory, etc. Them new-fangled theories sure is handy! But I’ll leave that to others better versed in physics than I.