Branch
Poster
Posts: 17 
World: Nexus
Pronoun: she
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Post by Branch on Jul 25, 2015 22:40:11 GMT
Do you want someone to repair a smashed apartment block for you?
How was it smashed? What's your world like generally?
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Post by equalest on Jul 25, 2015 22:54:49 GMT
Two gangs of mages were fighting in the street, as mages do. Some overzealous earth mage decided he could hit his rivals more easily with huge slabs of pavement. One such slab crashed through the ground floor of a four-story building, taking out several supports and giving it a nasty slant.
The tenants got out okay, with no thanks to the mages. But their homes aren't very livable.
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Branch
Poster
Posts: 17
World: Nexus
Pronoun: she
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Post by Branch on Jul 25, 2015 23:07:41 GMT
Is there anyone else here who has a good solution to this problem? It's possible I could come up with something, but it's also possible that someone else could do it more efficiently.
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Mozee
Poster
Posts: 38
Pronoun: stars and seas, I couldn't care less.
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Post by Mozee on Jul 26, 2015 3:47:32 GMT
Oh, my. I can help with that, equalest. This apartment block may end up a little more Embellished than it was, but I can repair it quite thoroughly. Is there any particularly dangerous magic that I might encounter if I make a Portal there?
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MagicPhD
Poster
Posts: 95 
World: Fractal
Pronoun: he
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Post by MagicPhD on Jul 26, 2015 20:08:17 GMT
I find that individual mages cease to be a problem once technology has advanced to the point where their advantages are comparatively greatly lessened. This was accomplished in my universe by understanding magic and creating devices that anybody could use that does magic as well or better than mages. If you send my data on what you know of how your magic works, I can study how to create such devises that could work in your world. Ideally, this would be in the form of brain scans of mages in the process of doing magic with descriptions of what magic they are doing.
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Branch
Poster
Posts: 17
World: Nexus
Pronoun: she
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Post by Branch on Jul 26, 2015 20:13:49 GMT
MagicPhD, I wouldn't be inclined to assume that most forms of magic are as susceptible to mechanization as yours. Not that it's not worth investigating, of course.
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Post by equalest on Jul 26, 2015 20:26:54 GMT
If I had a cooperative mage, how would I get a "brain scan"? Or is it something the mage would object to?
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MagicPhD
Poster
Posts: 95
World: Fractal
Pronoun: he
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Post by MagicPhD on Jul 26, 2015 20:39:14 GMT
If it exists, you can do science to it. Once you understand something, you can generally do it better than nature.
Of course, magic in some universe could require a sentient being to use it, and creating a magic devise is thus creating a mind, which has ethical implications that I will steer away from.
Non-invasive scans are fine, and in fact preferable: the person being examined should have no effects other than performing their magic. Possible brain scanners include magnetoencephalography, positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related optical signal (EROS), and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). These are all machines that do different kinds of imaging of active brains.
Computed axial tomography (CAT) or electroencephalogram (EEG) would be better than nothing, but the former only gives static images, and the latter gives limited information.
If none of these sound familiar to you, you might not have the technology to give me the data I need, but you should look into local options: your magic might have ways to examine your magic, for instance.
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Post by equalest on Jul 26, 2015 21:43:41 GMT
If it exists, you can do science to it. Once you understand something, you can generally do it better than nature. Of course, magic in some universe could require a sentient being to use it, and creating a magic devise is thus creating a mind, which has ethical implications that I will steer away from. All major belief systems agree that magic comes originally from spirits or animals. Some say that mages are born with spirits in their same body, responding to their will. Non-invasive scans are fine, and in fact preferable: the person being examined should have no effects other than performing their magic. Possible brain scanners include magnetoencephalography, positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related optical signal (EROS), and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). These are all machines that do different kinds of imaging of active brains. Computed axial tomography (CAT) or electroencephalogram (EEG) would be better than nothing, but the former only gives static images, and the latter gives limited information. I recognize a small handful of those words but none of them together. If none of these sound familiar to you, you might not have the technology to give me the data I need, but you should look into local options: your magic might have ways to examine your magic, for instance. The very possibility terrifies me. |
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Cassiel
Poster
Posts: 10
World: Erebus
Pronoun: he
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Post by Cassiel on Jul 27, 2015 14:27:30 GMT
equalest, it sounds like your world's magic is not learnable? (More like my world's divine magic than arcane). That... tends to be a problem, yes. Advancing technology and introducing general-available learnable magic has tended to help some with the power imbalance inherent there in my world, but it continues to be a serious problem. Although, as lurkingkobold said, if a group of people can effectively oppose a, mmm, mage, that tends to disincentivize abuse of power, especially if that consistently happens when it occurs.
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Post by Meletiti Entelecheiai on Jul 28, 2015 5:56:09 GMT
It's usually possible to make any powerset learnable! Sometimes you have to totally rewrite your body and soul-anatomy to get it to really work right, though, which can be super annoying.
I might be able to help with that, but probably not! It's not impossible my alpha could make something entirely out of reifications, though, and that should be importable even into worlds without proper alethics!
--ChibE
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Singer
Poster
Posts: 34
Pronoun: She
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Post by Singer on Jul 28, 2015 6:05:25 GMT
...I think having to rewrite your soul would be more then super annoying. Assuming souls actually exist in this universe, which like, is unproven despite what certain people say. But if they did exist and you rewrote one, I'm not sure that person would be meaningfully the same person after you were done with them.
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Post by Meletiti Entelecheiai on Jul 28, 2015 6:10:16 GMT
Nah, the only bit of a person that matters is the set of self-altering patterns that make up their mind, the substrate can be anything from brains to laws to water clocks! Well, I guess if the person themselves care about some other bit that'd be up to them, but by default, your soul looking different matters about as much as having an extra arm to your identity.
Well, I suppose if a magic system keyed off a personality trait or something, that's possible! Then you really couldn't learn it without changing your identity. But it'd still be possible to make a magic-prosthetic, I bet!
--ChibE
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Singer
Poster
Posts: 34
Pronoun: She
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Post by Singer on Jul 28, 2015 6:18:22 GMT
sounds like you have a different definition of souls then the usual ones, or at least the ones that are usual here. I don't know about other universes.
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Test Bed
Poster
Posts: 39
World: Chaeral
Pronoun: she/her
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Post by Test Bed on Jul 28, 2015 11:45:02 GMT
Nah, the only bit of a person that matters is the set of self-altering patterns that make up their mind, the substrate can be anything from brains to laws to water clocks! That sounds weird but it makes a lot of sense! I've seen it repeated by several philosophical writers that a soul is like a song. Your heritage is the written notes, your brain is the instruments, your senses are the musicians, and the music is you. It makes sense that the 'music' is what matters, not... what plays it. |
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