This is testable. It predicts that improved skill with occlumency and/or gaining power should sometimes cause a release of chronic tension.
That wouldn’t be a test of the theory that hostile telepaths use muscle cues, since those things could cause muscle release for other reasons (as per Popper: tests can only be disproving, and they require a rival theory to decide between).
If gaining power never causes a release of tension, that still doesn’t disprove the theory, since again they could be tracking other things as well.
A more direct question would be something like: Can hostile telepaths in fact read people who are physically rigid better than people who have low muscle tension? Do their reads get better or worse when tension is added? Does it change the type of information they can read (and perhaps give more information for some axes and less for others)?
My impression is muscle tension gives a big sign on your back that you are hiding something, but makes it more muddy to non-trained people what exactly is being hidden.
It reminds me of Mark Lippmann’s blog post on virtual machines, and how we often have layers of virtual machines. Or in plain language: if you close your eyes and imagine your environment, and imagine making an escape within that imaginary environment, real-you might not tighten your muscles in such a way that you’d be readable.
I remember hearing that when we are seriously thinking about standing up, our heart rate and blood pressure rise in anticipation, but if we just hypothesise that we might stand up and keep it very abstract, the body doesn’t start those physical processes.
But it’s very obvious when someone has gone into their head! So hostile telepaths often want some kind of emoting or ‘really listening’ or ‘paying attention’ or ‘be present with me’.
So, yeah it conceals some information, but then it adds other information (such as meta information about concealment).
That wouldn’t be a test of the theory that hostile telepaths use muscle cues, since those things could cause muscle release for other reasons (as per Popper: tests can only be disproving, and they require a rival theory to decide between).
If gaining power never causes a release of tension, that still doesn’t disprove the theory, since again they could be tracking other things as well.
A more direct question would be something like: Can hostile telepaths in fact read people who are physically rigid better than people who have low muscle tension? Do their reads get better or worse when tension is added? Does it change the type of information they can read (and perhaps give more information for some axes and less for others)?
My impression is muscle tension gives a big sign on your back that you are hiding something, but makes it more muddy to non-trained people what exactly is being hidden.
It reminds me of Mark Lippmann’s blog post on virtual machines, and how we often have layers of virtual machines. Or in plain language: if you close your eyes and imagine your environment, and imagine making an escape within that imaginary environment, real-you might not tighten your muscles in such a way that you’d be readable.
I remember hearing that when we are seriously thinking about standing up, our heart rate and blood pressure rise in anticipation, but if we just hypothesise that we might stand up and keep it very abstract, the body doesn’t start those physical processes.
But it’s very obvious when someone has gone into their head! So hostile telepaths often want some kind of emoting or ‘really listening’ or ‘paying attention’ or ‘be present with me’.
So, yeah it conceals some information, but then it adds other information (such as meta information about concealment).
Actors might be interesting to study, here.