Story Wednesday July 25, 2018

[Scotty 1,061]

49 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Anyway, the idea also reminds me one movie which wasn't exactly popular but Dan MIGHT saw him.

That was my thinking as well, the movie was released the year before Dan started the comic, the plot from it would have been seen in trailers, so even if Dan didn't see the actual movie, the idea of a multiverse and a person trying to kill their alternates would have been fairly fresh from the trailers.

[hkmaly 490]

26 minutes ago, Scotty said:

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Anyway, the idea also reminds me one movie which wasn't exactly popular but Dan MIGHT saw him.

That was my thinking as well, the movie was released the year before Dan started the comic, the plot from it would have been seen in trailers, so even if Dan didn't see the actual movie, the idea of a multiverse and a person trying to kill their alternates would have been fairly fresh from the trailers.

Right.

On the other hand, it IS also possible that while that used to be Lord Tedd's motivation back then, Dan changed it meanwhile to something more though out.

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, hkmaly said:

Right.

On the other hand, it IS also possible that while that used to be Lord Tedd's motivation back then, Dan changed it meanwhile to something more though out.

Certainly, the whole idea that General Shade Tail is manipulating Lord Tedd definitely sets it apart from the movie.

[ChronosCat 155]

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Personally, I think that number of universes is infinite so any similar attempt wouldn't have chance to succeed, however I don't think Dan was talking about number of universes yet ...

As I recall, way back in the Keenspot days, Dan said that the EGS multiverse contained a finite number of universes. (Unfortunately  I don't have a link, and obviously Dan could have changed his mind since then.)

EDIT: A little searching on the Keenspot forums brought up this, which for the purposes of this discussion is almost the opposite of what I remembered. I wonder if I was remembering a different statement, or if I was misremembering that one?

Also relevant to this discussion: Word of Dan regarding Lord Tedd's Attacks from 2004.

Edited July 28, 2018 by ChronosCat
Keenspot links, fixing the quote

[hkmaly 490]

1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Personally, I think that number of universes is infinite so any similar attempt wouldn't have chance to succeed, however I don't think Dan was talking about number of universes yet ...

As I recall, way back in the Keenspot days, Dan said that the EGS multiverse contained a finite number of universes. (Unfortunately  I don't have a link, and obviously Dan could have changed his mind since then.)

EDIT: A little searching on the Keenspot forums brought up this, which for the purposes of this discussion is almost the opposite of what I remembered. I wonder if I was remembering a different statement, or if I was misremembering that one?

Also relevant to this discussion: Word of Dan regarding Lord Tedd's Attacks from 2004.

... so, Dan definitely DID saw at least the trailer for that movie ...
... also, he might be underestimating how big infinity is. Most people are. Most people can barely imagine how big our solar system is, and that's not only finite but VERY small in astronomical terms.

That said, some things really ARE impossible. Like, it IS technically possible human will be lifted to air by random motion of particles, but any sane universe needs to have at least some rules about cause and effect which makes some combination of events impossible.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Like, it IS technically possible human will be lifted to air by random motion of particles,

That almost happened to me when I was four years old. A near hurricane strength gust of wind took hold of me and would have sent me flying if not for my father who happened to be holding on to me at the time.

What? Gusts of wind are pretty random.

[Scotty 1,061]

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... also, he might be underestimating how big infinity is. Most people are. Most people can barely imagine how big our solar system is, and that's not only finite but VERY small in astronomical terms.

Well you figured that you not only have to account for every possible instance where the development of the universe itself could go multiple ways, but also every instance for each galaxy, each solar system, each planet, and each individual creature, and once you get to Humans, it really gets complicated because Humans make hundreds of choices every day from what clothes to wear, what to eat, who to talk to, etc, and at this point, 7 billion people means a lot of choices are being made and we still gotta include things happening on the universe, galactic, solar and creature levels as well. if there is a finite number of universes, that number would be absolutely enormous.

[Don Edwards 548]

According to one story I read, universes which differ by too little will re-merge, and this is why our memories become hazy and our knowledge of history sometimes develops contradictions - we're trying to simultaneously remember multiple versions of what could have happened (at levels of detail that ended up not mattering).

Thing is, when one considers that over the scope of the entire universe, it's hard to believe that the question "does life ever develop on this particular little planet?" would matter...

[hkmaly 490]

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

10 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... also, he might be underestimating how big infinity is. Most people are. Most people can barely imagine how big our solar system is, and that's not only finite but VERY small in astronomical terms.

Well you figured that you not only have to account for every possible instance where the development of the universe itself could go multiple ways, but also every instance for each galaxy, each solar system, each planet, and each individual creature, and once you get to Humans, it really gets complicated because Humans make hundreds of choices every day from what clothes to wear, what to eat, who to talk to, etc, and at this point, 7 billion people means a lot of choices are being made and we still gotta include things happening on the universe, galactic, solar and creature levels as well. if there is a finite number of universes, that number would be absolutely enormous.

Meanwhile, if there is infinite number of universes, it doesn't present any problem. For the same reason you can fit countably infinitely many coachloads of countably infinite passengers each into single hotel with a countably infinite number of rooms, all of which are already occupied.

15 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

According to one story I read, universes which differ by too little will re-merge, and this is why our memories become hazy and our knowledge of history sometimes develops contradictions - we're trying to simultaneously remember multiple versions of what could have happened (at levels of detail that ended up not mattering).

That's very interesting and complicated idea for explaining something which can be explained much simpler: human memory is stored in way which is not designed to remain clear. Neural nets like brain are very inefficient regarding reliable data storage, but it was working good enough for practical purposes until like few thousand years ago, which is too short time to evolve something better ... especially considering that even now, it's something which would be nice to have but our live rarely depends on it.

However, I have alternative idea: universes which don't differ at all will merge and become stronger in the process. Like, two universes can have different history but get to the same state later. EXACTLY same state, as in noone even remembers the difference - either noone noticed, or they forgot, or the ones who remembered it died ...

And the "stronger" part? That's my solution to navigation: all universes are not equal when you want to visit them. The stronger the universe is, the easier is to "tune" your "gate" to it. And the universe is stronger when relatively low number of improbable stuff happened in it, or when it's result of merge of more universes (which may actually be the same) ... or if more people believe in it (that explain why you have any chance at all to hit universe with something as unlikely as life).

18 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Thing is, when one considers that over the scope of the entire universe, it's hard to believe that the question "does life ever develop on this particular little planet?" would matter...

You don't even need multiple universes to realize that our planets only astronomical significance is that all astronomers we know live on it.

[Tom Sewell 268]

17 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... wait, that was official graphic novel and not just webcomics?

Most assuredly; I had both volumes. They were compilations each of four comics published by Warp Graphics; I also had the rest of the comic series before Warp warped into the black hole that has swallowed up TSR, Tokyo Pop, West End Games, Borders, Blockbuster, etc. A different black hole swallowed my collection along with everything else in my house that wasn't nailed to the floors while I was hospitalized.