Races' Ken

[Gradius]

Ken is defined as "cognizance: range of what one can know or understand." The human brain has 100 billion neurons with 1 quadrillion synapses. Chimpanzees have 6 billion neurons. If you were to attempt to coach a chimpanzee how to do calculus, even from birth, you would not succeed. It is impossible for a monkey to do calculus; it is beyond its ken.

We can define consciousness as what happens when you have 100 billion neurons, or some other lower arbitrary numbers. So what happens if you have, say, near-on a quadrillion neurons? Maybe like the Protoss or the Xel'Naga.

The basis for these two races, protoss & xel'naga, is that they are beyond human ken. By hovering over the Zealot campaign model in the original StarCraft you can see that its brain is more elongated and has other different properties. So my question is, are the Protoss beyond the Terrans' ken? Is there anything the humans could not understand that Protoss can, given enough explanation? And are the Xel'Naga beyond the Protoss' ken as well? Does the addition of extra neurons/synapses only increase processing power after you reach a certain threshold, such as humans have.

After reading the Dark Templar trilogy I get the feeling that Protoss really are not beyond the humans' ken. Zamara tells Jacob: "In a way Jacob, you understand us better than we do ourselves." This seems like a total crock to me: here we have this mysterious, enigmatic race beyond our comprehension, yet Jake here understands them better than they do themselves.

On the other hand, Zamara could not explain the concept of the Xel'Naga cycle fully with Jacob or Zeratul because they could not enter the Khala. And in StarCraft: Frontline Volume 4, a scientist claims that psionic amplifiers, which the Protoss have in the form of forearm crystals on zealot suits, are beyond human comprehension.

So what do you think? I might be forced to go with a "no," which is disappointing since it strips all the mystery/allure away from these races.

[Kimera757]

I don't think we can answer that, but I'm leaning towards yes. I think there are some aspects of the protoss terrans can never understand, and the Khala is one of them.

Yes, Ramsey could enter the Khala, but, to be fair, he did have his brain inhabited and modified by a protoss. (Almost the same thing with Gestalt Zero.)

[Gradius]

That's more like a physical handicap though, instead of a mental one. Humans can't enter the Khala because it would kill them, not necessarily because they can't understand it. Jake couldn't enter the real thing IIRC (Zamara had to stop him from trying), but he felt what it was like in the memories he experienced.

Zeratul could not be explained how the Xel'Naga cycle works, but we know the concept is not beyond his ability because Zamara, a Protoss, understands it. The key phrase here is "ability to understand given enough explanation or physical requirements". A Dark Templar for example, can never understand the Khala - but that's because he cut his nerve cords off, not because it's beyond his ken.

[Kimera757]

Humans can't enter the Khala because it would kill them

Humans can't enter the Khala because they don't have nerve cords. Ramsey was only in trouble because any time he used a psychic ability, he was damaging his brain due to Zamara's inexact possession method.

Of course, you could see this as a handicap, but the Khala is a huge part of the protoss; it's a (seemingly limited) version of their initial psionic bond.

In any event, outside of psionics* (admittedly a huge part of protoss technology and abilities) the protoss don't seem to have anything that humans can't understand. I bet, given time, terrans could even understand things like the Arbiter's cloaking field. However, because psionics is such a huge part of the protoss, it does seem to put quite a bit of their knowldge beyond human ken.

*While there are powerful terran psychics like Nova, even she could probably never understand the Khala or its darker counterpart.

[n00bonicPlague]

Have faith, Zeratul!
You almost sound as if you fear these humans.
What are they to such as we?
Was it not we who defeated the dreaded Overmind?

Yes, Artanis.
We did vanquish the Overmind.
But we did so with the help of humans.
Do not be so quick to underestimate them.

Other than that, I think the only thing that limits humans is the inability to tap into the Khala. Because everyone has their own personal take on what certain combinations of words mean, humans have trouble communicating and receiving pure concepts. The protoss have the Khala, and thus are able to send and receive concepts without any hindrance. Think of it this way: both humans and protoss have ultra-powerful computers, but the protoss have a flawless LAN connection, while the humans have to rely on dial-up. Our issue is communication, not understanding.


.

[Visions of Khas]

"No one calls themselves villains in their own tales -- do ya kennit?"
-Stephen King's The Long Road Home

Sorry, couldn't help it. "Kenning" is used in lieu of "understand" in King's Dark Tower series.


The Protoss' range of understanding is, to me, quite obviously beyond that of the typical terran. The energies that course through khaydarn crystal are beyond the understanding of terran scientists. However, it seems clear that the Protoss' own understanding of their own technologies are likewise limited, but the scope of their kenning exceeds any terran. At this time the Xel'Naga are the only race whose depth of understanding is by far the most profound. Were I to rank the races by such standards, they would be as follows:

Xel'Naga
Overmind
Protoss
Terrans

Do ya kennit?

[Pandonetho]

Ok, my name is Ken... so this thread is totally cool. I'll just imagine everyone is talking about me. Yep, I'm that popular.

[Gradius]

One other thing I forgot to consider is that Jake's brain had to rapidly evolve to be able to understand Protoss emotions i.e. limbic system and parts of brain we don't understand. It was the same kind of growth as in puberty, but it happened in seconds.

Based on this I'm changing my answer to yes, though I still don't know for sure whether there is really anything humans couldn't understand that Protoss do given enough explanation or psionic ability.

Humans can't enter the Khala because they don't have nerve cords.

Andre Madrid from SC: Revelations entered the Khala, but died from it. And in Shadow Hunters when Jake is near the huge crystal Zamara stops him from going into the khala.

[Norfindel]

If it's measured by the amount of neurons, it's no doubt the Protoss have more, and they seem to know a lot more than the Terran, not to mention way longer lifespans.

If the Terran can understand everything the Protoss do with enough explanation, i don't know, maybe if they're given enough time (generations), which would probably result in their brains slowly getting bigger.

Terrans should re-learn everything about science the Protoss way to begin learning from them, as probably the Protoss science bears little resemblance with ours.

Our advantage over chimpanzees in this case, is that we can communicate way better with the other race than they can.

Don't expect writers to be capable of sucessfully showing the behaviour of a race that is way more intelligent than us. How can anyone do something like that?

[Gradius]

Don't expect writers to be capable of sucessfully showing the behaviour of a race that is way more intelligent than us. How can anyone do something like that?

Simple: don't divulge too much info i.e. don't have the whole "narration via a human" concept which requires protoss to be brought down to the levels of a human, which we saw in the Dark Templar saga; and cut out the lines such as "you know us better than we do ourselves."

Queen of Blades did a decent job. When Raynor was sharing thoughts with Tassadar/Zeratul he had to leave because he got a headache and couldn't understand the nonsensical thoughts which included random poetry, etc. etc.