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Howitzer

Story: Friday, October 28, 2016

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Here's a thought I just had.

Can Sarah 'save' iterations of her internal "holodeck" or customize them to the extreme.

The obvious connotations of why someone would do that are lewd, so i'm going to leave that your imaginations and skip to the one I thought of next. Imagine that Sarah develops some kind mind-palace/important object storage place. Being able to save iterations, she slowly constructs this area out of pieces of other simulations she goes into, taking walls, floors, furniture and the like to create an ideal environment in which she can think clearly should she need to. Within this environment, she also stores image replicas of anything important the main cast comes across. Say for example they came across a macguffin that was split into multiple parts, but they couldn't take the piece they had with them for safety reasons, so Sarah makes a copy of it, so when they find the other piece, she can take a copy of that piece into her 'customised mindspace' and put them together manually to see if they connect.

Sorry, went a bit far with that. But seriously, Sarah being able to 'save' simulation instances would be an interesting concept.

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6 minutes ago, Wixelt said:

Here's a thought I just had.

Can Sarah 'save' iterations of her internal "holodeck" or customize them to the extreme.

The obvious connotations of why someone would do that are lewd, so i'm going to leave that your imaginations and skip to the one I thought of next. Imagine that Sarah develops some kind mind-palace/important object storage place. Being able to save iterations, she slowly constructs this area out of pieces of other simulations she goes into, taking walls, floors, furniture and the like to create an ideal environment in which she can think clearly should she need to. Within this environment, she also stores image replicas of anything important the main cast comes across. Say for example they came across a macguffin that was split into multiple parts, but they couldn't take the piece they had with them for safety reasons, so Sarah makes a copy of it, so when they find the other piece, she can take a copy of that piece into her 'customised mindspace' and put them together manually to see if they connect.

Sorry, went a bit far with that. But seriously, Sarah being able to 'save' simulation instances would be an interesting concept.

That seems really advanced and probably another spell altogether, though it might just be as simple as remembering how she set up a previous simulation and just willing a new snapshot to change to it.

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Just now, Scotty said:

That seems really advanced and probably another spell altogether, though it might just be as simple as remembering how she set up a previous simulation and just willing a new snapshot to change to it.

Perhaps something Sarah could think about if she actually awakens then.

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You know, this spell actually does fit Sarah pretty well, in retrospect.

 

Looking at her character across the whole of EGS, her role has largely been to be the perhaps the most normal person in a group of people who are, to be honest, weird, and gaining power at an alarming rate in-universe (albeit years out of universe). The observer to their weirdness, the Jane to their Tarzan.

 

This ability kind of expands on the same lines as her character: she has phenomenal cosmic power, but mostly to cogitate and reflect upon what those around her are doing.

 

She dreamed of being a wizard once... And she will continue dreaming of being a wizard. Only better dreaming...

 

Come to think of it, would a mind-entering power allow someone to see all this? Pandora could maybe piggy back in Sarah's mind as she did with Grace and have a looksie. I now start to realize that she may have been making a bit of a lie when she was saying 'I must find a way to observe what you do in there'.

 

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5 hours ago, Drasvin said:
5 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

And how does that work if she's on a moving bus?

The bus would stop moving in the simulation. And if she willed it to start moving, then the same would happen if she walked to the edge of the 'snapshot' in the simulation, just she would get there much faster. Though I have no clue what would happen if she tries to move beyond the bounds of the spell's 'snapshot'

We don't even know how the edges of simulation LOOKS. I mean, can she LOOK trough them (because photons necessary for it are inside simulation) or not?

4 hours ago, Circe said:

....or probably the bus just stops. :)

Would it crash into edges like it would be solid wall, or would it JUST stop, ignoring inertia?

3 hours ago, Wixelt said:

Sorry, went a bit far with that. But seriously, Sarah being able to 'save' simulation instances would be an interesting concept.

Sounds very OP.

2 hours ago, Wixelt said:
2 hours ago, Scotty said:

That seems really advanced and probably another spell altogether, though it might just be as simple as remembering how she set up a previous simulation and just willing a new snapshot to change to it.

Perhaps something Sarah could think about if she actually awakens then.

Yes. Seems like one possible "upgrade" for her spell. Although likely not her first spell after awakening, considering she might not be able to cast this spell then.

1 hour ago, RainbowWizard said:

Looking at her character across the whole of EGS, her role has largely been to be the perhaps the most normal person in a group of people who are, to be honest, weird, and gaining power at an alarming rate in-universe (albeit years out of universe).

While it might've been alarming compared to rest of world, I think it was NORMAL speed for Moperville magical anomaly. Scary? Well, depends on how many people Pandora marked ...

1 hour ago, RainbowWizard said:

You know, this spell actually does fit Sarah pretty well, in retrospect.

Yes. It also suits her as artist, IMHO.

1 hour ago, RainbowWizard said:

She dreamed of being a wizard once...

I think "all the time" was closer to truth than "once".

1 hour ago, RainbowWizard said:

Come to think of it, would a mind-entering power allow someone to see all this? Pandora could maybe piggy back in Sarah's mind as she did with Grace and have a looksie. I now start to realize that she may have been making a bit of a lie when she was saying 'I must find a way to observe what you do in there'.

The different speed of time might be problem ... although, technically, dreams also don't work in real-time, so ...

Maybe it's because she needs to enter at start, so she need to time it properly? Or maybe the spell has some internal protection ...

Observing dream may be easier than entering awake mind.

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8 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Grace behaved VERY differently than vegetable. Sure, she wasn't behaving like GRACE, but she behaved as body with working brain.

 

She behaved how Sarah's subconscious expected her to behave around Tedd, and may have been an over-exaggeration, which essentially proves that the spell didn't carry over what might have been going through Grace's mind at the moment of the spell cast. So that would also apply to anything that might have been loaded into memory on a computer. Sarah's interaction with Grace here is not any different from her interaction with vamp!Sarah and wolf!Sarah, it's basically all inner monologue.

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34 minutes ago, Scotty said:

She behaved how Sarah's subconscious expected her to behave around Tedd, and may have been an over-exaggeration, which essentially proves that the spell didn't carry over what might have been going through Grace's mind at the moment of the spell cast. So that would also apply to anything that might have been loaded into memory on a computer. Sarah's interaction with Grace here is not any different from her interaction with vamp!Sarah and wolf!Sarah, it's basically all inner monologue.

You basically says that the computer wouldn't retain content in RAM, but you could boot it from CD-ROM and it would work normally.

(CD-ROM retaining information is covered by "anything she can look at with microscope is accurate".)

Sarah doesn't have biology and medical knowledge to make Grace move "properly". If she moves regardless, it means your argument with what Sarah knows is invalid.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Sarah doesn't have biology and medical knowledge to make Grace move "properly". If she moves regardless, it means your argument with what Sarah knows is invalid.

Please do not make statements that absolutist. It is rude.

I also disagree with you. My own medical and biological knowledge is not all that great, and I can nonetheless make myself move properly. I do not see how I require a medical degree to imagine someone else moving.

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To expand on the above post, when an individual moves, it is the product of a mixture of involuntary, automated, and voluntary processes. The involuntary accounts for necessary functions, such as breathing. The voluntary usually covers intention, and clarification through decisions along the way. The automated is the meat of the matter, we do not think ourselves through each step, we simply walk. Automaticity, or the formation of subconscious response patterns, is one of the most important aspects of human cognition. Without it, we could not easily walk, read or speak... let alone run, write or sing. However, it is most easily disrupted by bringing voluntary thought to bear on the task, a prime example being an attempt to remember a number that you regularly input "by heart".

I figure there are a two probable explanations for Grace's behaviour in Sarah's simulation.

1. Sarah's spell is using her own automatic patterns and subconscious, in conjunction with her understanding of Grace's personality, to synthesize an "actor" which responds to her requests. In this case, Grace could use any automatic patterns, like speaking, that Sarah has established. If her instructions go outside the personality or the bounds of her own patterns, the spell will either fail or derive a placeholder.

2. Sarah's spell is using her own memories to synthesize a sensory composite which reflects her direction. In this case, the composite would only be limited by Sarah's memories and capacity to distort them, and would thus be particularly susceptible to projection.

The first option is both more interesting and more useful for simulation. The second is just what people do normally, we don't need magic for that.

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Just now, hkmaly said:

You basically says that the computer wouldn't retain content in RAM, but you could boot it from CD-ROM and it would work normally.

(CD-ROM retaining information is covered by "anything she can look at with microscope is accurate".)

Sarah doesn't have biology and medical knowledge to make Grace move "properly". If she moves regardless, it means your argument with what Sarah knows is invalid.

I'm not saying that booting from CD-Rom would work normally, I was originally saying that the spell wouldn't translate any digitally or magnetically stored information, but then you were like "what if it was stored in video memory?" and so I used RAM as a general reference in my response to that, because VRAM and DRAM have similar function.

Even if it was possible to see all the ridges and valleys on a CD-ROM that doesn't mean it would work, Sarah would have to still have an accurately functioning computer to be able to read it, and Sarah is hoping to become an artist, not a technical engineer, so how well would you think her knowledge of how computers work is?

For the last bit, Hack and Banneret explain it better that I could have. And I took think the first option in Banneret's is more likely.

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Yes, I believe Sarah could cause fake-Box to appear and carry on a conversation - and fake-Box would say something Sarah would plausibly guess Box might say.

No necessary, or even non-coincidental, connection to what real Box would actually say.

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Yup, anything that anybody within Sarah's mindspace might say would come from Sarah's own mind, so it couldn't give her any brand-new information, merely give voice to something already in her mind/subconscious. She might get an "Oh, I hadn't thought about it that way" insight, but not any actual new data.

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15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
18 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Sarah doesn't have biology and medical knowledge to make Grace move "properly". If she moves regardless, it means your argument with what Sarah knows is invalid.

Please do not make statements that absolutist. It is rude.

I also disagree with you. My own medical and biological knowledge is not all that great, and I can nonetheless make myself move properly. I do not see how I require a medical degree to imagine someone else moving.

... maybe moving the conversation between threads wasn't that good idea.

We are debating Scotty's pretty absolute conviction that computer can't work in simulation because Sarah doesn't have necessary knowledge about microelectronic. I'm comparing that argument with saying that Grace can't move in simulation because Sarah doesn't have necessary knowledge of medicine and biology.

14 hours ago, banneret said:

To expand on the above post, when an individual moves, it is the product of a mixture of involuntary, automated, and voluntary processes.

I wasn't even thinking on THAT level. I was thinking about muscle contractions. Although yes, thinking about what exactly are you doing when you talk is harder than talking ...

14 hours ago, banneret said:

The first option is both more interesting and more useful for simulation. The second is just what people do normally, we don't need magic for that.

I agree that the first option is more interesting. Also, if the second would be true, Grace explaining something to Sarah the way she did would be sign of mental problems.

8 hours ago, Scotty said:

Even if it was possible to see all the ridges and valleys on a CD-ROM that doesn't mean it would work, Sarah would have to still have an accurately functioning computer to be able to read it, and Sarah is hoping to become an artist, not a technical engineer, so how well would you think her knowledge of how computers work is?

I'm pretty sure I explained it multiple times already. There is no reason to assume she needs to know something about computers to make computer work in simulation, just like there is no reason to assume she needs to know about what proteins in muscles are responsible for Grace moving (it's actin and myosin, BTW). First, the spell may not really require this informations to emulate the actions. Second, as proved by Abraham's "modern knowledge" spell, there IS some "place" containing "common" knowledge the spell can get this information from.

Also, the way Elliot interacted with his "merged" phone suggest the spell was able to translate informations provided by phone to provide them differently. It wasn't using physical microphone, speaker or screen of the phone, it emulated them inside Elliot's mind. So, if the Cheerleadra spell can do it, why not Sarah's?

(Which reminds me, we will likely not see Sarah using desktop computer in simulation, but she might try her phone ; I would mention in advance that smartphone is technically computer.)

4 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Yes, I believe Sarah could cause fake-Box to appear and carry on a conversation - and fake-Box would say something Sarah would plausibly guess Box might say.

No necessary, or even non-coincidental, connection to what real Box would actually say.

Agree, any "Box" Sarah would converse with in the simulation wouldn't be connected with real Pandora. Although I suspect Pandora herself would prefer if there would be some option for it ...

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

Yup, anything that anybody within Sarah's mindspace might say would come from Sarah's own mind, so it couldn't give her any brand-new information, merely give voice to something already in her mind/subconscious. She might get an "Oh, I hadn't thought about it that way" insight, but not any actual new data.

On the other hand, there ARE data in her subconscious which her conscious never evaluated. It's not just about the way he thinks about it ; for example, she might hear something she didn't payed attention to, but her subconscious could still extract memory of it.

I think Grace's behaviour in simulation could be more precise than what would Sarah expect consciously - but still based on what she knows about her.

 

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15 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... maybe moving the conversation between threads wasn't that good idea.

We are debating Scotty's pretty absolute conviction that computer can't work in simulation because Sarah doesn't have necessary knowledge about microelectronic. I'm comparing that argument with saying that Grace can't move in simulation because Sarah doesn't have necessary knowledge of medicine and biology.

The reason I moved this portion here is because I once got warned by Hack about posting information from a new comic in the reaction thread of an older comic, I was trying to avoid that again.

 

22 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Also, the way Elliot interacted with his "merged" phone suggest the spell was able to translate informations provided by phone to provide them differently. It wasn't using physical microphone, speaker or screen of the phone, it emulated them inside Elliot's mind. So, if the Cheerleadra spell can do it, why not Sarah's?

(Which reminds me, we will likely not see Sarah using desktop computer in simulation, but she might try her phone ; I would mention in advance that smartphone is technically computer.)

I fail to see why, if Sarah's spell could do such a thing, couldn't it allow her to have a legitimate conversation with a person and ask them about stuff she doesn't know the answer to.

You can't have one and not the other.

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9 minutes ago, Scotty said:
37 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... maybe moving the conversation between threads wasn't that good idea.

We are debating Scotty's pretty absolute conviction that computer can't work in simulation because Sarah doesn't have necessary knowledge about microelectronic. I'm comparing that argument with saying that Grace can't move in simulation because Sarah doesn't have necessary knowledge of medicine and biology.

The reason I moved this portion here is because I once got warned by Hack about posting information from a new comic in the reaction thread of an older comic, I was trying to avoid that again.

Yes, of course. It's just that it also have it's disadvantages.

10 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I fail to see why, if Sarah's spell could do such a thing, couldn't it allow her to have a legitimate conversation with a person and ask them about stuff she doesn't know the answer to.

I don't have any reason which would satisfy materialist, but EGS is obviously not materialistic world, so the answer is simple: what person says depend not only on their biological brain, but also on their soul, and the simulation is not able to copy souls.

Note that human brain is much more complicated than computer, so materialistic answer MIGHT be based on that, but it's not so satisfying: if there is some limit on complexity, it might be at any place. It IS possible that computers are too complex to work, it's just that it requires arbitrary limit and you can just as well speculate that old 80386-based computer will work and modern one wouldn't because it's just so happened that transistors smaller than 100nm can't be simulated, or the number of transistors might go over some limit.

On the other hand, arbitrary limits exists. Her spell has some finite range which is also arbitrary. Arbitrary limits are also most likely to move with experience: her range is likely going to get bigger, so might the number of things she can keep "moving" (experiencing time) without faking it and endangering accuracy of simulation. Meanwhile, if reason she can't talk with real people is they have soul, it's hard limit she can't overcame even with Dex's pedant.

 

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I'm sorry, I'm going to have to end this discussion, I'm unable to get my point across, and frankly, the "there's probably a part of the spell that gives common knowledge about stuff" is pushing the same type of button that JML has when someone says "this character might be that character". I don't believe that Sarah's spell has any "spell within a spell" parts, I don't believe that anyone who's marked has those types of spells right off the bat, even though I do believe it possible (and it is canon) for that to happen later on. I'm basing my feelings on what Dan has already said is and isn't possible, and we're stuck on an example that we can't agree if it fits in "is" or "isn't".

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35 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to end this discussion, I'm unable to get my point across, and frankly, the "there's probably a part of the spell that gives common knowledge about stuff" is pushing the same type of button that JML has when someone says "this character might be that character". I don't believe that Sarah's spell has any "spell within a spell" parts, I don't believe that anyone who's marked has those types of spells right off the bat, even though I do believe it possible (and it is canon) for that to happen later on. I'm basing my feelings on what Dan has already said is and isn't possible, and we're stuck on an example that we can't agree if it fits in "is" or "isn't".

Well, it's not like this discussion was going anywhere. I think the argument with soul was my last one and I would only repeat myself. I'm also basing my feelings on what Dan has already said is and isn't possible, but I must admit he didn't say enough ...

We might get another evidence in Monday, but it's not likely it will be something which decide it. More likely we get more OT3 fuel and that's not something I would complain about :)

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8 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

We might get another evidence in Monday, but it's not likely it will be something which decide it. More likely we get more OT3 fuel and that's not something I would complain about :)

Now that, I can agree with.

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:

I'm unable to get my point across, and frankly, the "there's probably a part of the spell that gives common knowledge about stuff" is pushing the same type of button that JML has when someone says "this character might be that character". I don't believe that Sarah's spell has any "spell within a spell" parts, I don't believe that anyone who's marked has those types of spells right off the bat, even though I do believe it possible (and it is canon) for that to happen later on.

Button pushers Unite!

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This is still going to bother me anyways...

While computers may or may not be usable in the simulation, I don't think Sarah's knowledge of how they work has anything to do with it.  If she just interacts with things physically (e.g., by pushing keys on the keyboard or the computer's power button or moving the mouse or opening a laptop's lid), then everything's based on actual reality and Sarah's knowledge and expectations are irrelevant.  If she uses her modify-the-simulation abilities, then the computer will probably just show what she expects (i.e., inaccurate simulation), just like Grace did, again with knowledge of the inner working irrelevant, but she has to choose to use those abilities; this won't just happen if she tries to push buttons on a sufficiently complicated machine.

She can almost certainly use her modify-the-simulation abilities to interact with the computer in a way that just shows what she expects (like she did with Grace).  A more interesting question is whether she can interact with a computer without using those abilities, i.e., what will happen if she pressed buttons and such.  My guess is that that wouldn't do anything (similar to talking to a frozen person), because while she can move the keys on the keyboard, the rest of the computer and the electricity powering the computer is frozen; pressing the key could would complete a circuit that no electricity is flowing through; and there's no clear way to physically interact with the computer to get electricity flowing.  If any electric or electronic devices work in the simulation, then, there's probably some special case in the spell (which is definitely possible); but also if pressing buttons on the computer actually does do things, then it will be accurate because she didn't use the ability that makes the spell inaccurate.

There's a possibility that someone skilled enough with the spell could use the modify-the-simulation ability without decreasing its accuracy, and it's possible that knowing how the thing you're trying to interact with could help with that, but this hasn't been established, and it's not what's happening when she uses simple items like doors (opening doors is physical interaction, which doesn't decrease the accuracy of the spell).

Or, in less words:
Sarah talks to a frozen person ⇒ they don't respond (but doesn't decrease simulation accuracy)
Sarah modifies the simulation to animate the person ⇒ they come to life but do what Sarah expects
Sarah pressed buttons on ("talks" to) a frozen computer ⇒ unknown (but doesn't decrease simulation accuracy); probably either nothing or accurate simulation
Sarah modifies the simulation to animate the computer ⇒ it comes to life but does what Sarah expects

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