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QUESTION: I was wondering if there was any real basis to the terminology "philotic effect?" Are there any real theories in quantum physics that deal with this concept?

-- Submitted anonymously

OSC REPLIES: - October 5, 1999

The philotic effect, as I describe it in Xenocide and Children of the Mind, along with the aiua that it depends on, happens at a level too small to be detected by any existing instruments. Whether it coincides with any present theories of material existence is purely coincidental. I was dealing with metaphysics, and, in the time-honored tradition of science fiction, set my story in a future in which metaphysics became physical.

In other words, to answer your questions in order: no and no.

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