Lantern
Regular
Posts: 106
World: Glazed
Pronoun: They
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Post by Lantern on May 18, 2015 17:17:04 GMT
Hi! Your text, easily comprehensible, subcategories, connections, conclusions, structures, I/you/is sentences ->clarity, understanding, less confusion! Also (maybe) magical affect (other world type) as well? I am, friendly, (attempted) helpful, peaceful, (probably) uninteresting. Hopefully discover together, friendly, understanding, light! I am glad you find my speech easy to understand. Unfortunately, I will have to disable this spell for the comfort and security of others, but perhaps I can target you specifically if you would prefer?
I, too, hope for grand discoveries!
Thank you! Others' comfort has importance, priority. I'd like specific targeting, comprehensible reading structure, if convenient. If not easy, could harm other forum-friends, has a price, takes more than several seconds -> not worth it. Offer appreciated!
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Post by Andrew on May 18, 2015 18:14:10 GMT
I think Cardea would also like that if she still reads the forum. I think LurkingKobold would either strongly appreciate it or strongly dislike it, but I don’t know which.
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MagicPhD
Poster
Posts: 95
World: Fractal
Pronoun: he
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Post by MagicPhD on May 18, 2015 20:49:13 GMT
If I had to guess (and I dare not be certain with a foreign entelechy), your equipment sensed nothing because there was nothing to sense. My spell ... is complicated to explain without diving into local metaphysics, but it is equivalent to a function that maps the space of possible interpretations by you to the space of possible intended meanings by me, and chooses the point in interpretation-space closest to my chosen point in meaning-space. Intervening concepts such as causality and plausibility are generally elided.
I was not anticipating this spell having to deal with multiple simultaneous readers! I am glad to find that it adapted gracefully, though mostly unsurprised.
Feel free to dive into metaphysics: I enjoy learning about such things. It sounds like you simulated my mind to generate the set of interpretations, but this is secondary to my main source of confusion: How does a universe even function without strict causality that must be adhered too? Even with atemporal physics, there should still be a mechanism, surely? This seems similar to esthfora, which I also don't understand: I don't work in a way unless I really have to. Again, there seems to be a complete lack of mechanism. Can you shed some insight into this?
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Post by lurkingkobold on May 18, 2015 23:27:06 GMT
...Thread is do of rainbows?
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Post by Andrew on May 18, 2015 23:59:37 GMT
No rainbows. The original poster was using magic to make things easy to understand.
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Post by Leaf on May 19, 2015 0:03:32 GMT
Well, no rainbows for you, Andrew. We do have a rainbow-themed guardian around. Maybe the magic in the first post was harmful to kobolds somehow, and Esthfora blocked it for her?
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Post by Grigori on May 19, 2015 0:24:23 GMT
...huh.
Welcome, I guess.
That's a little overpowering, and I find it disconcerting to encounter such effects through a simple web-browser. I suspect I shall have to design some filters; there seems to be just a bit too much weird stuff that leaks through while using this forum.
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Post by Andrew on May 19, 2015 0:27:20 GMT
I don’t see how it would be, given the message and the description of the magic, but I suppose it’s possible.
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Post by Meletiti Entelecheiai on May 19, 2015 1:48:29 GMT
If I had to guess (and I dare not be certain with a foreign entelechy), your equipment sensed nothing because there was nothing to sense. My spell ... is complicated to explain without diving into local metaphysics, but it is equivalent to a function that maps the space of possible interpretations by you to the space of possible intended meanings by me, and chooses the point in interpretation-space closest to my chosen point in meaning-space. Intervening concepts such as causality and plausibility are generally elided.
I was not anticipating this spell having to deal with multiple simultaneous readers! I am glad to find that it adapted gracefully, though mostly unsurprised.
Feel free to dive into metaphysics: I enjoy learning about such things. It sounds like you simulated my mind to generate the set of interpretations, but this is secondary to my main source of confusion: How does a universe even function without strict causality that must be adhered too? Even with atemporal physics, there should still be a mechanism, surely? This seems similar to esthfora, which I also don't understand: I don't work in a way unless I really have to. Again, there seems to be a complete lack of mechanism. Can you shed some insight into this? Hm. Well, then! Trust me, it is not that I doubt your ability or desire to learn; doubt rather my ability to teach! Metaphysics is a rather esoteric subject, and often the masters of the subject have entirely different internal metaphors for its workings - though naturally, there is only one model and only one predicted result. It does not help that the subject actively resists being learned! - though now that I think of it, someone outside my Truth may not have that restriction. Should try the experiment sometime... I am not certain where your confusion is, but I can think of three things that may help clear it: - Simulation of your mind.
Nothing of the sort has occurred, though the effects are similar: I performed no computation, and neither did my spell.
Mmm... It may be productive to think of my magic, and I by extension, as logically omniscient: that is, given a set of premises, I am aware of all theorems that are true given those axioms. My reach is not quite that dramatic - while I can locate arbitrary truth, I do not have access to the full cardinality of truth at once, and so I need to know what I am looking for.
Nevertheless, the set of states-of-your-mind exist somewhere out there in concept-space, in much the same way as the number "two" exists as a concept independent of its medium or whether or not anyone is thinking of it. My spell can access this set, and apply physical metaphors like "distance" to it, without first having to generate it or else hold it in memory - it behaves similarly to a ball rolling down a slope in a complex well, in that the "computing" has been offloaded to the universe itself.
- The lack of a "way".
I cannot speak for Esthfora, naturally. But for Entelechy, at least, there is indeed a well-defined and deterministic mechanism by which magic works. It simply isn't well-connected in a path-dependent way to physical reality.
Some of this will be elaborated upon further in my full metaphysics post, but: essentially, magic defines a concept to be true. One specifies the concept in terms of more ontologically basic concepts, and then infuses it with mana until it is real. The rest of the world executes contortions in order to accommodate, which necessarily involves certain bending of the local laws of physics; the more contortion is required, the greater the mana cost.
That being said, in general the causal mechanism is valid at every point; it is merely extremely unlikely.
Mm... I will give you a metaphor, but I do not know if you have the background (either in terms of advancement, or in terms of appropriateness-of-physics) to understand it. (Note to self: check perfect comprehension for use as teaching tool, side effects, use on magic?) Have you heard of the quantum bogosort? A bogosort is a particularly silly form of sorting algorithm: rewrite the list at random, check if it is in order, and if it is not redo from start. The quantum bogosort replaces the final step with "if it is not, destroy the universe": the only surviving world will be the one where the list has happened to be sorted on the first try. Any theoretical observer of this algorithm observes that for no local reason, a ludicrously unlikely possibility - the list spontaneously sorting itself - occurs 100% of the time.
Conceptual magic in general, and Entelechy magic in particular, can be imagined in this framework. Magic enforces a truth, and all universes must abide by that truth; other universes have been winnowed, are unobservable, are unreal, are untrue. Truly impossible events can be imagined as forcing a world where we had always been wrong about the laws of physics, or an inelegant world where the general rules include exceptions for particular events. It is partially for this reason that the basic rules of logic - not (not A and A), 2+2=4 - cannot be changed.
I am reminded of a famous local author's facetious Third Law: "Sufficiently advanced technology is distinguishable from magic only when the former stays broken." That is to say, technology, which is fundamentally "setting up a chain of dominoes," a set mechanism that produces a set effect, can be broken by interrupting the chain at any point; magic, however, has set the result in advance, and interfering in any one chain merely raises the mana cost slightly and forces the universe to switch to a different plausible mechanism. Interfering with true magic requires directly contesting it, or redirecting it to a useless truth.
- Interaction with ideals.
Entelechy magic can freely interact with ideals and concepts. The ideal form of a message exists, and can be targeted and translated, up to the accuracy of your definition of "ideal", for example. It is often not necessary to come up with your own definition, in fact: using the general-use definition is doable, as is targeting your reflectively consistent interpretation of a concept without actually knowing what the interpretation is.
Did that help, at all?
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Post by Meletiti Entelecheiai on May 19, 2015 15:04:54 GMT
Thank you! Others' comfort has importance, priority. I'd like specific targeting, comprehensible reading structure, if convenient. If not easy, could harm other forum-friends, has a price, takes more than several seconds -> not worth it. Offer appreciated! Mm. My poor grammar, pardon, forgive. Personally, am reasonable competent, but new syntax entire -> unfamiliar, unaccustomed. Not easy, takes more than several seconds, but: fun, interesting, worthwhile. Will begin shortly. I think Cardea would also like that if she still reads the forum. I think LurkingKobold would either strongly appreciate it or strongly dislike it, but I don’t know which. When next I see her I will ask. Thank you.
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MagicPhD
Poster
Posts: 95
World: Fractal
Pronoun: he
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Post by MagicPhD on May 19, 2015 16:55:14 GMT
Thank you for your detailed post, Meletiti Entelecheiai. It is very interesting and enlightening.
Taken by itself, I can wrap my head around your conceptual magic, though I hope that is does not actually work by quantum bogosort, which horrifies me on both thermodynamic and ethical bounds.
Given a magic that takes concepts, including truth, as it's fundamentals, then manipulating and transferring these concepts directly to a mind seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
I run into difficulties when I try to understand how this interacts with my own world and method of magic. Our magic interacts with items in the following list, and their combinations only: 'matter' particles -quarks (6 types) and their antimatter equivalents -electrons (3 types)and their antimatter equivalents -nuetrinos (3 types)and their antimatter equivalents 'force' particles -photons -W bosons -Z bosons -gluons -Higgs Boson -graviton -mageon space-time
Everything else magic does must be built on interactions of these. As everything in my universe is made of these, this is not onerous. In essence, our version of that laws reads "Sufficiently advanced technology is precisely equivalent to sufficiently advanced magic"
Therefore, all concepts can only be patterns of mass-energy, and are therefore only inside minds; they lack independent existence.
The intersection of our metaphysics seems to be null: but we know you magic does work on me. Care for an experiment? I have sensing equipment tuned to my magic. If there's a simple effect you can do, I can try to see what happens, and let you know. Given that there is a Fractal magic way to accomplish any effect, I hypothesize that your magic would create it's intended effect by using my system.
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Post by Meletiti Entelecheiai on May 19, 2015 17:21:31 GMT
Amusing. Your physics is precisely identical to mine, with the exception of the mageon, in the absence of metaphysical effects. That is quite gratifying; I had long since suspected that the nature of Matter was such that the material universe would be generated with whatever laws it might have had in its own Entelechy, and it seems I was correct.
Ah, I suppose I should check, however: do "E Ψ = H Ψ" and "G + g Λ = 8 π T" mean anything to you, as an equation dictating the evolution of probabilistic distributions and an equation dictating the curvature of spacetime, respectively? I am depending on the translation software to translate our notation; if they are meaningless in a way that seems likely to be a notational issue I can attempt to apply perfect comprehension to the equations alone, or send you a private message.
Unfortunately, enacting effects in your universe is problematic. Our universe has... shall we say, "hooks", in the laws of physics: the universe is structured as to permit its own modification. (Or rather, the laws of physics are of finite and relatively small reality, and can be replaced by fantasy without undue effort.) Preliminary scrying of your universe reveals, as I expected, that your laws of physics generally decline to be changed; as your universe is not infinitely real the way logic is, I could hypothetically override that, but it would take a spectacular amount of mana. Probability manipulation still runs into this problem: quantum mechanics predicts a probability distribution over future events, and to do anything meaningful on your end I would have to alter that distribution. I could do it, but not for a simple experiment. Apologies.
(For future notice, this is part of what I mean when I say you are from a different truth: your world works on different mechanics. In fact, in a very real sense, I do not exist to you: I could be standing in your living room (do you have living rooms?) and be mutually undetectable. (Well. In practice, I do not have a position in your world, that question is invalid, but.)
... Mm. Actually, I could probably manage a very small effect, in both significance and size. Do you happen to have a single-photon detector handy, for example? And, ah, I would prefer you keep it secret, but if you must tell someone, do so on the other side of the planet from wherever you are, that would help.
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Lantern
Regular
Posts: 106
World: Glazed
Pronoun: They
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Post by Lantern on May 19, 2015 17:30:40 GMT
Thank you! Others' comfort has importance, priority. I'd like specific targeting, comprehensible reading structure, if convenient. If not easy, could harm other forum-friends, has a price, takes more than several seconds -> not worth it. Offer appreciated! Mm. My poor grammar, pardon, forgive. Personally, am reasonable competent, but new syntax entire -> unfamiliar, unaccustomed. Not easy, takes more than several seconds, but: fun, interesting, worthwhile. Will begin shortly. Okay! If you would like help, guidance, clarification..., -> PM, will help! For own enjoyment, interest, worthwhile.
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MagicPhD
Poster
Posts: 95
World: Fractal
Pronoun: he
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Post by MagicPhD on May 19, 2015 17:41:28 GMT
Yes, those are precisely the physical equations in the limit of zero magic (and, of course, small masses and large masses, respectively). It's fascinating to me that you simultaneously have both physical particles and metaphysical objects that can be treated as fundamental objects.
We do have living rooms, and given that you do, and have the same QM and GR, it seems likely that you have a physical body, much as I do. So I question your meaning when you say that you do not exist to me. We can communicate, so you exist. Whether I would ever know of your existence without the assistance of the gracious Mother Starlight is another question entirely, in my mind.
I have several single-photon detectors in my lab here. Purely magical ones, purely non-magical ones, several that use a mixture of magical and non-magical techniques. I can even give a choice of observed or non-observed single or double slits, if you like.
I can easily be alone in my lab, working on unspecified things. It's almost expected of me, at this point.
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Post by Meletiti Entelecheiai on May 19, 2015 19:42:16 GMT
Fascinating and gratifying to me as well, though not unexpected: the nature of Matter is such that it seeks self-sufficiency, so the material world should be a reasonable approximation of a magic-less world. And it indeed seems to be!
(Though to go on a tangent, discovering those laws was quite a bother for almost every civilization that had to manage it, because magic kept getting in the way. I believe the record for understanding that conservation of mass was a thing despite the fact that fire destroyed matter is two centuries from the most recent Enlightenment.)
We are interacting through a remarkably esoteric spell instantiated in my mindscape, that to my rather comprehensive knowledge is the first such spell in existence, powered by the entire output of a medium-coverage Dyson swarm, that allows me to interact with beings built on an entirely alien algebra. It is not entirely impossible that Mother Starlight might have managed the same through her very nature, but I suspect that even she would find it difficult. It is rather akin to an invisible, intangible, in-observable unicorn sitting in your living room that can nevertheless communicate with you through this forum: certainly, he exists in that sense, but should he attempt to, say, kick your door down, he would fail comically.
The restriction, for your information, is fundamentally on the change in your world's timeline/destiny due to my interference. Small chaotic divergences are nevertheless cheap, because the overall distribution looks fairly identical - unpredictable results are cheap. A major, predictable splash essentially diverts your entire universe along a different path - and that diversion shows up as an energy cost on my end, which is multiplied by the difficulty of changing your truth in particular. So the less any particular action affects your world, the less I have to pay. I suspect that merely communicating with your universe would be intolerably expensive if it were not for the use of this forum as an intermediary.
At any rate, the less I affect your world the better, and if you must let it be known, the concept of space is associated with separation; the farther away you are from the experiment the better. Things like "revolution around the sun and around the galaxy" count some, but they're less important to your culture/mindset/personal definition of distance and that of the history I'm changing, so the entire movement of the galaxy counts on around the same scale as going to the antipode.
At any rate, why don't we take this to PMs and we can start planning an experiment? We can announce the results publicly afterwards - I suspect this thread is now the defacto Entelechy thread.
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