immediats

Immediats is a fictional concept used in speculative discourse to denote hypothetical agents capable of exerting influence on distant systems without a mediating signal that travels at or below the speed of light. The term suggests immediacy in effect, regardless of spatial separation, and is typically described as either non-physical or operating outside conventional spacetime constraints. In many portrayals, immediats are invoked to explore questions of causality, information transfer, and moral responsibility in scenarios that challenge locality.

In thought experiments, immediats allow a choice or action at one location to produce an effect elsewhere without time delay, raising questions about determinism and the nature of causation. In fiction, they commonly appear as mysterious beings, fields, or mechanisms that enable rapid or instantaneous communication, telepathic links, or paradoxical interactions between distant beings or systems.

Limitations and reception: There is no empirical evidence for immediats in the real world, and their existence would conflict with established physical theories such as special relativity unless accompanied by a broad, accepted theoretical framework. As a result, immediats are treated as a hypothetical tool for illustrating conceptual issues rather than a validated physical phenomenon. Proponents sometimes frame immediats as thought-experiment devices to probe limits of locality and information flow, while critics emphasize the lack of testable predictions.

See also: Nonlocality, quantum entanglement, causality, faster-than-light communication, action at a distance.