Gap-sickness

[Sorus]

What is it about crossing the gap that causes gap-sickness? Can a single explanation account for such a wide range of triggers and symptoms?

Considering the size of the UMCP and the space faring population in general, 1% is high. Even given the fact that a large percentage of that population hasn't crossed the gap, it must still be a high number.

[drew]

It could be a few things: Naturs way of not letting huanityget out of hand?
Proof that the people of earth had gone too far? Or just a way of showing that even in the future when we had accomplished just about everything...that we're still not perfect, ie: we're still human. (I doubt if any Amnini get GS)

About the amount of people who get it, I;m sure it is a high number, otherwise Zone Implants, not matter how illegal, wouldn't have had a market.

[Sorus]

Apparently, one out of every hundred people had some kind of undetectable vulnerability in the tissue of the brain; and when that vulnerability was translated across light- years of space through the imponderable physics of the gap, something happened to it. Otherwise healthy individuals lost command of their lives in invariably startling, often grotesque, and sometimes murderous fashions.

I guess what I'm asking is whether that's realistic? Is there any scientific basis to suggest that such a thing might be possible, or is it pure science fiction? It seems rather vague for SRD when most of the tech in the series is at least partially based on fact.

[drew]

Well, since humans really aren't supposed to cross into light speed, it's possible that when it happened, there was conciquences.

There are people who pass-out at high speed (crossing the sound barrier), and they have to test astronaughts to see if they can handle heavy G or not..so I guess it's not that much of a streatch,

[Sorus]

But heavy G wasn't truly the problem - Morn was exposed to it many times but it didn't become a problem until after she crossed the gap for the first time.

[drew]

I'm just saying that Donaldson might have just extrapolated the idea from that.

Did you ever post that one in the GI?
It's not a bad idea..he LOVES it when he gets a GAP Question, he'll deffinatly answer it.

[lucimay]

What is it about crossing the gap that causes gap-sickness? Can a single explanation account for such a wide range of triggers and symptoms?

Considering the size of the UMCP and the space faring population in general, 1% is high. Even given the fact that a large percentage of that population hasn't crossed the gap, it must still be a high number.

i'll have to read the explanation again to really address this but, just on gut instinct alone, i DO think that such a thing as Gap Sickness is possible and highly PROBABLE. as i said elsewhere, however Donaldson explained and described things (ANY things) in The Gap Cycle...i bought it, lock, stock, and barrel. it made sense to me.
what is the percentage of Down's Syndrome in humans, what is the percentage of schizophrenia, manic depression, holes in the heart, leukemia, or ANY kind of genetically predisposed human condition?
instinctively, gap sickness "sounded" right to me...that there would BE such a thing...as i said tho, i'll reread the descriptions and come back to this thread when i can articulate better.

[wayfriend]

Here's my interpretation:

A person's mind is a complicated thing. It's half physical - neurons and chemicals and electric charges. The other half is more complicated: what we would call the soul or spirit, a meta-physical higher-order phenomenon that interacts both with the physical world, supposedly through the brain's processes, and with the spiritual world. There is something that transcends.

People have often speculated about this junction. What is it about the soul that attaches it to a body? What is it about the mind that connects it to the meta-physical realms?

If you look at it that way, then a gap crossing must be an enormous stress on the mind, on the bond between the physical brain and the meta-physical spirit. When the physical aspect is translated lightyears, it may be very hard for the spirit to hang on tight. Something can snap.

When Morn's gap sickness takes over, and she feels like the universe is making everything perfectly clear, this is very recognizable as a religous, transcending experience. Some would describe it as God talking to them. You might speculate that such a condition could occur if the spirit and the brain were disjoint somehow, not working together well, throwing your mind into state confused with transcendance.

The author also hints enough times, especially in TDAGD, that Morn herself feels that the symptoms of her gap sickness seem to logically follow from her childhood experiences. The loss of her mother scarred her, created a person who craved vengeance. Morn comes to see that destruction of yourself and those around you is the natural outcome of that passion. All of which goes, again, towards the idea that gap sickness is an illness with a spiritual component as well as a physical one.

Consider how many times Donaldson talks about neurological chemicals in the story. And about how they make you feel, change your outlook. And zone implants themselves, how by manipulating your brain they induce changes in your spirit. In my mind he is exploring this brain/spirit junction in many places in the gap.

So, to paraphrase: gap-sickness is when your spirit gets harshly re-wired to your brain due to the violence of bypassing a chunck of the physical plane. Just my idea.

[lucimay]

what he said!!

[Motherlode]

Here's my interpretation:

A person's mind is a complicated thing. It's half physical - neurons and chemicals and electric charges. The other half is more complicated: what we would call the soul or spirit, a meta-physical higher-order phenomenon that interacts both with the physical world, supposedly through the brain's processes, and with the spiritual world. There is something that transcends.

People have often speculated about this junction. What is it about the soul that attaches it to a body? What is it about the mind that connects it to the meta-physical realms?

If you look at it that way, then a gap crossing must be an enormous stress on the mind, on the bond between the physical brain and the meta-physical spirit. When the physical aspect is translated lightyears, it may be very hard for the spirit to hang on tight. Something can snap.

When Morn's gap sickness takes over, and she feels like the universe is making everything perfectly clear, this is very recognizable as a religous, transcending experience. Some would describe it as God talking to them. You might speculate that such a condition could occur if the spirit and the brain were disjoint somehow, not working together well, throwing your mind into state confused with transcendance.

The author also hints enough times, especially in TDAGD, that Morn herself feels that the symptoms of her gap sickness seem to logically follow from her childhood experiences. The loss of her mother scarred her, created a person who craved vengeance. Morn comes to see that destruction of yourself and those around you is the natural outcome of that passion. All of which goes, again, towards the idea that gap sickness is an illness with a spiritual component as well as a physical one.

Consider how many times Donaldson talks about neurological chemicals in the story. And about how they make you feel, change your outlook. And zone implants themselves, how by manipulating your brain they induce changes in your spirit. In my mind he is exploring this brain/spirit junction in many places in the gap.

So, to paraphrase: gap-sickness is when your spirit gets harshly re-wired to your brain due to the violence of bypassing a chunck of the physical plane. Just my idea.

Great Post!

[Usivius]

I agree with what you all said (in a vain effort to pop my post total over the 1000 mark ... tee hee)