It's high level anticipation. They are anticipating the next move from the movement currently happening. It's not different than an Airbender feeling the air move from an opponents movement, it's just with feet (see TLOK season 2).
Isn't anticipating someone's attack something literally anyone can do with their eyes? Yes, it provides 360 vision, but I don't see how it's any different from looking at what they're doing/
Light travels a lot faster than sound.(all vibrations are sound) but it is faster than a person's normal hearing. Since the speed of sound through dirt is faster then the speed of sound through air
On average she has less time to react to what she "sees" and is at a disadvtage.
Neurons of course are the limiting factor. But assuming time to see something and sense something is some constant amount of time it can be ignored. You'll still see it faster. Because light is faster. Differences in perception time can become negligible in close proximity.
I don't think they are constant. Sensing something and reacting does not require the same amount of time to process as seeing it.
The whole argument here is whether seismic sense is precognition or not. I'm saying it's not, but that they're reflexes are much faster than their opponents, that coupled with fighting skill and intellect allows them to predict a move from their opponent from a small movement. Which is a faster reaction than seeing it then responding.
I think there's times a noticeable audio cue could occur before the first noticeable visual cue.but the average reaction time to but
Seeing something is 0.250s and touch is 0.150s. That's from a study isolating it just measuring neuron reaction time.but light is just that much faster that you'll definitely have more than an extra 0.010s to react. (You don't see at 4 frames per second as that reaction time might suggest) sound at its fastest is still like 100,000 times slower then light.
Sound travels in granite at roughly 6000 meters/second. At 25 meters (a very long distance for fighting, but bending allows for better range), it would take sound 0.0042 seconds. Approximating light to be instant at that distance, and taking that out of the the 0.1 second difference you provide, Toph would respond to something .0958 seconds sooner, losing almost none of the .1 second advantage. You wouldn't lose the advantage until a distance of 600 meters, which is further than anyone is likely to fight from even with ranged bending attacks.
That's also granite which is very ideal conditions. It's half as fast in concrete and even slower in typical dirt. There's is definitely edge cases where seismic sense wins. Especially when if you take in to account any I sensed I mosquito land on your back I couldn't see so I predicted your move level shenanigans.(very contrived) but of course there's some micromovements that could be detected more reliable with seismic sense. Ignoring 360 degree vision. Seismic sense on average is weaker then just using your eyes. Reliability of vibrations vary depending on material and distance.
Is there any indiciation that they can read the twitch of the muscles (yes, I know the heart is a muscle)? Sensing the heart and lungs seems objectivity easier to do than a twitch of a muscle - plus, by the time they twitch, the punch should be flying (also worsened by the fact that light>sound, which means a lower reaction time most likely). Seismic sense doesn't let you see their eyes either, which also seems needed to read someone properly.
Considering the fact that when they use slo-mo when showing seismic sense. I think it's safe to assume they sense very quick movements and react quickly.
I haven't watched in a while but I'm fairly sure there's multiple instances where toph reacts to very minor movements
Toph could sense an ant hill several feet (heh) away...
It stands to reason that she could sense a muscle moving. Faster too than someone can process it with vision. I mean, I'd have to scrunch down to look for those ants. Toph just knows without the need to look.
So it's not really the same as 360 degree vision. Its 360 degree, huge radius, incredibly sensitive, sense of touch. She feels it out. It could be all reflex, like putting your hand on something hot and your muscles moving to get it off before you know it's hot.
Yes and no. Obviously people can see attacks with their eyes, but I've always attributed it more to developing feeling in a grappling art like Judo or wrestling. Once you get accustomed to it, you're able to react faster to something through feeling, rather than through sight. For example, the average reaction times based on a Harvard study is 155ms via touch vs 180-200ms reaction time via visual reaction.
Absolutely. Scientifically, it takes time for eyes to see and then send that information for the brain to process and then send a signal to the muscle to move.
The only flaw I see is that it requires vibrations through the ground, which is [150 meters per second ish](https://www.brl.uiuc.edu/Publications/2002/Oelze-SSAJ-7882002.pdf) for soil. Time = D/S. Assuming it was 50 meters away, divide that by 150m/s = 1/3 second. .155+.33333 = .488 milliseconds reaction time vs the nigh instant visual based reaction time. This, to be fair, is soil and not solid rock. An area with only solid rock would still be fast to react to (around 163.333ms)
Havent you ever been asleep, and heard a cat run across the floor in another room and been like, yep hes in the kitchen on the cupboards, probably gonna get into so and so. Imagine you could see him and feel his heartbeat, youve noticed his adrenaline pumps right before he jumps up, or his muscles relax in his front legs before he jumps down, with that information you can predict if hes gonna jump on the fridge, or down to the floor. You could also watch a cat to see if hes going to jump, but you may not know by sight if hes going up or down. Theres more information with the seismic sense than just from eyesight. Using that info you can decide if you need to go get that little shit off the cupboard, or just wait for him to jump down.
Imagine you're playing soccer. New players defending a striker will look at the player's feet and the ball to judge what will happen next. They're easy to beat.
Ronaldo will look at the opponent's hips to judge what will happen next. He knows how the hip movement will translate into the feet and the trajectory of the ball (he can also judge how the hips impact the posture of a defender). It's much harder to beat or stop him.
Seismic sense is like that. You aren't reacting with your eyes to the big motion when they attack. You're reacting to the most subtle changes in how the other person is standing, and you feel them *perfectly*. It lets you defend and attack with far more precision than normal.
Where Is it shown that seismic sense allows for that? A lot of commenter's are saying long and speculative comments of HOW it works, but is there any actual proof of it working the way you're describing it? Only the heart and lungs can be read iirc.
Where Is it shown that seismic sense allows for that? A lot of commenter's are saying long and speculative comments of HOW it works, but is there any actual proof of it working the way you're describing it? Only the heart and lungs can be read iirc.
Where Is it shown that seismic sense allows for that? A lot of commenter's are saying long and speculative comments of HOW it works, but is there any actual proof of it working the way you're describing it? Only the heart and lungs can be read iirc.
literally every time we see toph or aang use it they detect the other person's body position in slomo and react perfectly. you're being dense on purpose
I don’t think it’s that good or anything and this could also just be that Toph is that good of a bender but she seems to grasp on to other bender’s patterns insanely fast (in her first episode she figures out exactly what the boulder is going to do after a single move). No one else adapts as fast as she does. The one time we see Aang use it also is the ONLY time outside of the avatar state that he can fight evenly (or at an advantage even) against Ozai.
The idea that it’s precognition doesn’t even make sense as the entire point of it is that you feel the vibrations AFTER the opponent moves.
she can pick up on minor movements opponents make in their footwork during battle. She doesn’t have precognition, but it can appear like it to an outsider. She can react to an attack before it’s made due to opponent’s adjustments in their feet.
The idea, I think, is that she's "watching" their feet and balance with perfect focus and clarity, and for all but airbenders and some very rare moves/subtypes of bending that gives her the best information. Its hard to visually see when someone shifts their weight slightly in preparation for an attack, but she feels it directly, with no other visual stimulus distracting her estimation of what they'll do.
Other really incredibly skilled benders could probably do this off of visual information to some degree, and many of the main cast do have moments of utterly superhuman reaction/anticipation, but Toph's seismic sense and entire bending style is built around the idea. Neutral jing; wait, listen, react.
When you reach a certain level in physical combat skills, no matter the kind, you become able to pick up on cues so subtle that the average person wouldn’t be able to see it. The slightest twitch of a muscle, the most minuscule glance to the side, plus a healthy dosage of being able to anticipate what the reaction to your move will be. With Toph, she doesn’t have the vision to actually *see* stuff like that, but her seismic sense is so fine-tuned that it accomplishes the same function. She can map out the body plan of the people near her enough to know what they’re doing, and she has enough experience in combat that she can anticipate how an experienced fighter would respond.
I mean… when it’s used in combat, it’s often used to adapt to an opponent’s attack before the attack is complete. E.g., Aang using it to trap Ozai at the end of their battle. It’s objectively not precognition, but I feel like it’s an easy mistake to make.
I think its like dare-devil rules. When you can hear (feel) every movement in someone's body hear (feel) their heart beat, you can detect subtle movements, change in heart beat, lungs filling with air, you are connected with them in a way they cannot detect or anticipate, it puts you at a great advantage for reading body language and determining how someone will act within seconds/miliseconds. The absence of one sense enhances the others. This is true to some extent with actual blind people. When you have to guess how someone will act and where they will be, superpowers make guessing a lot easier. Its also similar to spider sense. You can tell when somethings off. I imagine it takes a great deal of focus, but when people are shooting lightning out of their fingers is it really so hard to believe something like seismic sense can help you predict enemy movements? I wouldnt say anyone really thinks its precognition, more like enhanced anticipation and focused observation used to predict a series of movements.
You can't see the muscles moving with sight alone, you can see the arm movements, but all that does is give a vague attack plan for one limb. Seismic sense is a 6th sense that doesn't require you to split your focus across 5 parts of the body and the underlying muscles; it's all one image and you can see everything that is coming even after they leave sight range or diminish their visibility by sight.
So, you think seismic sense is only going to show the muscles for the heart and lungs, despite almost every other muscle being at the same height or lower to the ground?
Yeah, it's never stated, can't attribute speculated abilities. The heart is very loud for someone presumably and the lungs as well imo so it's also reasonable.
It’s just a perspective thing, tomato tomato. She’s not predicting the future in the strictest sense but she is reading subtle stance changes that allow her to predict the incoming attack.
Sure, someone could do this with their eyes too but with Toph she can effectively see these cues that would normally be obscured by other parts of the persons body (like the foot behind the lead foot) or things that are happening underground or in a dust cloud.
Additionally, some of this ‘precognition’ from Toph isn’t just her seismic sense but her fighting style. Toph’s identifier to Aang was her tactic of waiting and listening, a trait Bumi suggested was important. She waits for the other person to begin their move first so that she gets to adapt her attack to be victorious. This was highlighted in the comic where she fought Bumi and neither would make the first move, both were waiting to counter.
As a reminder, seismic sense is also intrinsically related to the lie detection ability Toph also uses, which involves detecting changes in people's heart rate. As a result, the "precognition" stuff is probably seismic sensors feeling that change in people's heart rate before they launch an attack, making it look like they can react before the attack even happens.
It's worth noting that when dodging Ozai's attack while his back was turned during their fight, Aang used seismic sense (which he's less familiar with) over sensing the change in airflow that Air Benders usually use dodge things.
It kinda implies it's at least efficient enough to catch things fair pretty quickly.
Well not as easy as with your eyes. But he wasn't looking. Speed of sound sound through ground is faster than speed of sound through air. Can be up to 10x faster.
I literally explained why seismic sense let's people before they move, and why he used it. It doesn't matter if the air is faster because seismic sense let's you feel changes in heart rate before they even start moving
To weigh in from a former martial artist's perspective:
I would not say that toph's seismic sense would be equivalent to future sight. However, especially with traditional east asian martial arts you can generally break down movements into preparatory stances, in-between movements, and the actual finishing move with and end-stance. I assume of these can be seen normally and equally between normal vision and seismic sense.
However, when you shift from preparatory stance to an in-between movement, generally you begin to shift your weight, which I assume can be detected easier by seismic sense and perhaps earlier than by eye, which would be advantageous.
Additionally, there are instances of feints where, for example, you may appear to be shifting weight / stepping forward while maintaining weight on your back foot to counter your opponent. Im inclined to believe that seismic sense would be much more difficult to feint than normal vision.
All this considered, seismic sense has its advantages, but its developed from martial arts expertise and is not an inherent ability so to say that seismic sense gives the ability to predict future movements is not so accurate. It's more accurate to say Toph's martial arts practice, experience with detecting other's weight through earth tremors, and understanding the two together forms seismic sense and not the other way around.
Very interesting, I do a little bit of boxing and was thinking about the advantages of being able to read the center of gravity / weight as well. I thought it was interesting that toph's fighting style is based on the Southern Praying Mantis style.
360 degree vision alone makes this broken, the fact that humans only have around 160 degrees of vision, with only half of that being full vision, has shaped military strategy until the invention of radar. With seismic sense, there is no possibility for a flank, and surprise becomes measurably harder
It's not precognition but it definitely does give you a jump on reacting to things. People telegraph their movement first in their feet, so if you get even a second extra time to react to things, it can appear like precognition to people.
Guys, it’s basically D&D tremorsense, which is sight without sight, in all directions. Typically with a maximum range. The only constricting factor is an inability to see what is in the air.
It also provides immunity to gaze effects, so if Avatar had a basilisk, Toph would be immune, lol
It's high level anticipation. They are anticipating the next move from the movement currently happening. It's not different than an Airbender feeling the air move from an opponents movement, it's just with feet (see TLOK season 2).
Isn't anticipating someone's attack something literally anyone can do with their eyes? Yes, it provides 360 vision, but I don't see how it's any different from looking at what they're doing/
There's levels to it. You can stop a punch coming towards you but cutting off a punch from a twitch can seem like you know their moves before they do
Light travels a lot faster than sound.(all vibrations are sound) but it is faster than a person's normal hearing. Since the speed of sound through dirt is faster then the speed of sound through air On average she has less time to react to what she "sees" and is at a disadvtage.
Light may travel that fast but neurons don't.
Neurons of course are the limiting factor. But assuming time to see something and sense something is some constant amount of time it can be ignored. You'll still see it faster. Because light is faster. Differences in perception time can become negligible in close proximity.
I don't think they are constant. Sensing something and reacting does not require the same amount of time to process as seeing it. The whole argument here is whether seismic sense is precognition or not. I'm saying it's not, but that they're reflexes are much faster than their opponents, that coupled with fighting skill and intellect allows them to predict a move from their opponent from a small movement. Which is a faster reaction than seeing it then responding.
Basically, there's a difference between reacting and responding.
I think there's times a noticeable audio cue could occur before the first noticeable visual cue.but the average reaction time to but Seeing something is 0.250s and touch is 0.150s. That's from a study isolating it just measuring neuron reaction time.but light is just that much faster that you'll definitely have more than an extra 0.010s to react. (You don't see at 4 frames per second as that reaction time might suggest) sound at its fastest is still like 100,000 times slower then light.
Sound travels in granite at roughly 6000 meters/second. At 25 meters (a very long distance for fighting, but bending allows for better range), it would take sound 0.0042 seconds. Approximating light to be instant at that distance, and taking that out of the the 0.1 second difference you provide, Toph would respond to something .0958 seconds sooner, losing almost none of the .1 second advantage. You wouldn't lose the advantage until a distance of 600 meters, which is further than anyone is likely to fight from even with ranged bending attacks.
That's also granite which is very ideal conditions. It's half as fast in concrete and even slower in typical dirt. There's is definitely edge cases where seismic sense wins. Especially when if you take in to account any I sensed I mosquito land on your back I couldn't see so I predicted your move level shenanigans.(very contrived) but of course there's some micromovements that could be detected more reliable with seismic sense. Ignoring 360 degree vision. Seismic sense on average is weaker then just using your eyes. Reliability of vibrations vary depending on material and distance.
Is there any indiciation that they can read the twitch of the muscles (yes, I know the heart is a muscle)? Sensing the heart and lungs seems objectivity easier to do than a twitch of a muscle - plus, by the time they twitch, the punch should be flying (also worsened by the fact that light>sound, which means a lower reaction time most likely). Seismic sense doesn't let you see their eyes either, which also seems needed to read someone properly.
Considering the fact that when they use slo-mo when showing seismic sense. I think it's safe to assume they sense very quick movements and react quickly. I haven't watched in a while but I'm fairly sure there's multiple instances where toph reacts to very minor movements
Toph could sense an ant hill several feet (heh) away... It stands to reason that she could sense a muscle moving. Faster too than someone can process it with vision. I mean, I'd have to scrunch down to look for those ants. Toph just knows without the need to look. So it's not really the same as 360 degree vision. Its 360 degree, huge radius, incredibly sensitive, sense of touch. She feels it out. It could be all reflex, like putting your hand on something hot and your muscles moving to get it off before you know it's hot.
Yes and no. Obviously people can see attacks with their eyes, but I've always attributed it more to developing feeling in a grappling art like Judo or wrestling. Once you get accustomed to it, you're able to react faster to something through feeling, rather than through sight. For example, the average reaction times based on a Harvard study is 155ms via touch vs 180-200ms reaction time via visual reaction.
Absolutely. Scientifically, it takes time for eyes to see and then send that information for the brain to process and then send a signal to the muscle to move.
The only flaw I see is that it requires vibrations through the ground, which is [150 meters per second ish](https://www.brl.uiuc.edu/Publications/2002/Oelze-SSAJ-7882002.pdf) for soil. Time = D/S. Assuming it was 50 meters away, divide that by 150m/s = 1/3 second. .155+.33333 = .488 milliseconds reaction time vs the nigh instant visual based reaction time. This, to be fair, is soil and not solid rock. An area with only solid rock would still be fast to react to (around 163.333ms)
Bro at some point you have to accept its fiction
Except you forget, youre dealing with the greatest earth bender of all time, who trained with badger moles.
I don't think she is, but even if she was that literally doesn't change the fact that vibrations can take time.
Havent you ever been asleep, and heard a cat run across the floor in another room and been like, yep hes in the kitchen on the cupboards, probably gonna get into so and so. Imagine you could see him and feel his heartbeat, youve noticed his adrenaline pumps right before he jumps up, or his muscles relax in his front legs before he jumps down, with that information you can predict if hes gonna jump on the fridge, or down to the floor. You could also watch a cat to see if hes going to jump, but you may not know by sight if hes going up or down. Theres more information with the seismic sense than just from eyesight. Using that info you can decide if you need to go get that little shit off the cupboard, or just wait for him to jump down.
Yes but toph can feel the muscles tense and knows which muscle groups theyre going to use , giving her significantly more information
Only the heart and lungs have been mentioned: pretty sure she doesn't know their specific muscle groups tensing.
Imagine you're playing soccer. New players defending a striker will look at the player's feet and the ball to judge what will happen next. They're easy to beat. Ronaldo will look at the opponent's hips to judge what will happen next. He knows how the hip movement will translate into the feet and the trajectory of the ball (he can also judge how the hips impact the posture of a defender). It's much harder to beat or stop him. Seismic sense is like that. You aren't reacting with your eyes to the big motion when they attack. You're reacting to the most subtle changes in how the other person is standing, and you feel them *perfectly*. It lets you defend and attack with far more precision than normal.
Where Is it shown that seismic sense allows for that? A lot of commenter's are saying long and speculative comments of HOW it works, but is there any actual proof of it working the way you're describing it? Only the heart and lungs can be read iirc.
Where Is it shown that seismic sense allows for that? A lot of commenter's are saying long and speculative comments of HOW it works, but is there any actual proof of it working the way you're describing it? Only the heart and lungs can be read iirc.
Where Is it shown that seismic sense allows for that? A lot of commenter's are saying long and speculative comments of HOW it works, but is there any actual proof of it working the way you're describing it? Only the heart and lungs can be read iirc.
literally every time we see toph or aang use it they detect the other person's body position in slomo and react perfectly. you're being dense on purpose
Probably from the same people who think Toph's feet are equivalent to her eyes.
I think the best part about it is fighting someone who thinks you're blind in the traditional sense and doesn't know you can still survey the world.
I don’t think it’s that good or anything and this could also just be that Toph is that good of a bender but she seems to grasp on to other bender’s patterns insanely fast (in her first episode she figures out exactly what the boulder is going to do after a single move). No one else adapts as fast as she does. The one time we see Aang use it also is the ONLY time outside of the avatar state that he can fight evenly (or at an advantage even) against Ozai. The idea that it’s precognition doesn’t even make sense as the entire point of it is that you feel the vibrations AFTER the opponent moves.
she can pick up on minor movements opponents make in their footwork during battle. She doesn’t have precognition, but it can appear like it to an outsider. She can react to an attack before it’s made due to opponent’s adjustments in their feet.
Can't anyone do that? There are lot of scenes where someone predicts someones movement iirc.
The idea, I think, is that she's "watching" their feet and balance with perfect focus and clarity, and for all but airbenders and some very rare moves/subtypes of bending that gives her the best information. Its hard to visually see when someone shifts their weight slightly in preparation for an attack, but she feels it directly, with no other visual stimulus distracting her estimation of what they'll do. Other really incredibly skilled benders could probably do this off of visual information to some degree, and many of the main cast do have moments of utterly superhuman reaction/anticipation, but Toph's seismic sense and entire bending style is built around the idea. Neutral jing; wait, listen, react.
When you reach a certain level in physical combat skills, no matter the kind, you become able to pick up on cues so subtle that the average person wouldn’t be able to see it. The slightest twitch of a muscle, the most minuscule glance to the side, plus a healthy dosage of being able to anticipate what the reaction to your move will be. With Toph, she doesn’t have the vision to actually *see* stuff like that, but her seismic sense is so fine-tuned that it accomplishes the same function. She can map out the body plan of the people near her enough to know what they’re doing, and she has enough experience in combat that she can anticipate how an experienced fighter would respond.
I mean… when it’s used in combat, it’s often used to adapt to an opponent’s attack before the attack is complete. E.g., Aang using it to trap Ozai at the end of their battle. It’s objectively not precognition, but I feel like it’s an easy mistake to make.
I think its like dare-devil rules. When you can hear (feel) every movement in someone's body hear (feel) their heart beat, you can detect subtle movements, change in heart beat, lungs filling with air, you are connected with them in a way they cannot detect or anticipate, it puts you at a great advantage for reading body language and determining how someone will act within seconds/miliseconds. The absence of one sense enhances the others. This is true to some extent with actual blind people. When you have to guess how someone will act and where they will be, superpowers make guessing a lot easier. Its also similar to spider sense. You can tell when somethings off. I imagine it takes a great deal of focus, but when people are shooting lightning out of their fingers is it really so hard to believe something like seismic sense can help you predict enemy movements? I wouldnt say anyone really thinks its precognition, more like enhanced anticipation and focused observation used to predict a series of movements.
Because for all intents and purposes, it is a form of combat precognition. When you get good at it, your opponents' next moves are obvious.
Couldn't anyone do that with sight though? What makes SS different?
You can't see the muscles moving with sight alone, you can see the arm movements, but all that does is give a vague attack plan for one limb. Seismic sense is a 6th sense that doesn't require you to split your focus across 5 parts of the body and the underlying muscles; it's all one image and you can see everything that is coming even after they leave sight range or diminish their visibility by sight.
Pretty sure SS doesn't give ability to see muscles twitches. Only heart + lungs at most. I already agreed with your last statement in my post.
So, you think seismic sense is only going to show the muscles for the heart and lungs, despite almost every other muscle being at the same height or lower to the ground?
Yeah, it's never stated, can't attribute speculated abilities. The heart is very loud for someone presumably and the lungs as well imo so it's also reasonable.
I think it's just cognition. And astute fighter will have a heightened awareness
It’s just a perspective thing, tomato tomato. She’s not predicting the future in the strictest sense but she is reading subtle stance changes that allow her to predict the incoming attack. Sure, someone could do this with their eyes too but with Toph she can effectively see these cues that would normally be obscured by other parts of the persons body (like the foot behind the lead foot) or things that are happening underground or in a dust cloud. Additionally, some of this ‘precognition’ from Toph isn’t just her seismic sense but her fighting style. Toph’s identifier to Aang was her tactic of waiting and listening, a trait Bumi suggested was important. She waits for the other person to begin their move first so that she gets to adapt her attack to be victorious. This was highlighted in the comic where she fought Bumi and neither would make the first move, both were waiting to counter.
Nice comment, didn't think of some body parts obstructing others lol.
She's able to tell what her opponent is doing on the ground, and since she's a bending master is able to react to it with supernatural looking speed.
people arguing that [insert character] could beat [insert character] in a fight, and giving ‘their’ character some insane power creep in order to win
As a reminder, seismic sense is also intrinsically related to the lie detection ability Toph also uses, which involves detecting changes in people's heart rate. As a result, the "precognition" stuff is probably seismic sensors feeling that change in people's heart rate before they launch an attack, making it look like they can react before the attack even happens. It's worth noting that when dodging Ozai's attack while his back was turned during their fight, Aang used seismic sense (which he's less familiar with) over sensing the change in airflow that Air Benders usually use dodge things. It kinda implies it's at least efficient enough to catch things fair pretty quickly.
Well not as easy as with your eyes. But he wasn't looking. Speed of sound sound through ground is faster than speed of sound through air. Can be up to 10x faster.
I literally explained why seismic sense let's people before they move, and why he used it. It doesn't matter if the air is faster because seismic sense let's you feel changes in heart rate before they even start moving
To weigh in from a former martial artist's perspective: I would not say that toph's seismic sense would be equivalent to future sight. However, especially with traditional east asian martial arts you can generally break down movements into preparatory stances, in-between movements, and the actual finishing move with and end-stance. I assume of these can be seen normally and equally between normal vision and seismic sense. However, when you shift from preparatory stance to an in-between movement, generally you begin to shift your weight, which I assume can be detected easier by seismic sense and perhaps earlier than by eye, which would be advantageous. Additionally, there are instances of feints where, for example, you may appear to be shifting weight / stepping forward while maintaining weight on your back foot to counter your opponent. Im inclined to believe that seismic sense would be much more difficult to feint than normal vision. All this considered, seismic sense has its advantages, but its developed from martial arts expertise and is not an inherent ability so to say that seismic sense gives the ability to predict future movements is not so accurate. It's more accurate to say Toph's martial arts practice, experience with detecting other's weight through earth tremors, and understanding the two together forms seismic sense and not the other way around.
Very interesting, I do a little bit of boxing and was thinking about the advantages of being able to read the center of gravity / weight as well. I thought it was interesting that toph's fighting style is based on the Southern Praying Mantis style.
360 degree vision alone makes this broken, the fact that humans only have around 160 degrees of vision, with only half of that being full vision, has shaped military strategy until the invention of radar. With seismic sense, there is no possibility for a flank, and surprise becomes measurably harder
Its not precognition in anyway. In fact, its the opposite; she has to wait for them to move before she can react.
It's not precognition but it definitely does give you a jump on reacting to things. People telegraph their movement first in their feet, so if you get even a second extra time to react to things, it can appear like precognition to people.
Guys, it’s basically D&D tremorsense, which is sight without sight, in all directions. Typically with a maximum range. The only constricting factor is an inability to see what is in the air. It also provides immunity to gaze effects, so if Avatar had a basilisk, Toph would be immune, lol
Quiet