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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
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Story: Friday 24 Feb 2017

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7 hours ago, ijuin said:

I think that it's not object-oriented programming per se that the religious groups are objecting to so much as it is the creation of clone forms, since clone forms open a lot of avenues for abuse (e.g. impersonating somebody by using one). It's rather like prohibiting alcohol due to objections to drunken behavior--it's the consequence that is worrisome, and the cause is merely an enabler.

But the creation of clone forms would be easier via the scanner than via object-oriented programming.

My guess is kind of the opposite: the prohibition of OOP in such devices is an (unsuccessful) attempt to restrict users to natural forms, i.e. supposedly if there isn't a winged cat then you can't make a winged-cat form. And of course if there are only natural forms, all you can scan is natural forms.

(This would be unsuccessful because OOP is not the only form of code re-use. In fact an essential part of OOP is that a block of reusable code have a clearly-defined purpose, clearly-defined capabilities, and a simple clearly-defined interface that other code can use to invoke that purpose and those abilities - and that's a pretty smart thing to do even without objects.)

 

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1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

But the creation of clone forms would be easier via the scanner than via object-oriented programming.

The scanner likely uses OOP as well.

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On 2/25/2017 at 4:07 PM, hkmaly said:

Not invalidate. It will just make them harder to use. Invalidating would mean that the way humans are constructed would radically change, which I would assume would be outside the options of Will of magic even if it WANTED to do something so complicated.

Reminder: There is nothing known to be outside Magic's ability besides time-travel (into the past). 

If the way humans are constructed magically changed and there is no reliable way to translate Tedd's data into usable data under the new system, "invalidate" is the correct term.  Admittedly that's a huge stretch.  I would *expect* that since the behavior of Uryouom energy won't change that in general its effects on humans isn't going to change.  There might be some differences in the margins. but not in the funamental ways it operates on humans.

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I suspect the religious restriction aspect came up more as an excuse for Dan to comment on the fact that a government which is supposedly open to all religions, still bases many of its laws on the dictates of one particular religion.

Edited by CritterKeeper
typo fix

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7 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

My guess is kind of the opposite: the prohibition of OOP in such devices is an (unsuccessful) attempt to restrict users to natural forms, i.e. supposedly if there isn't a winged cat then you can't make a winged-cat form. And of course if there are only natural forms, all you can scan is natural forms.

(This would be unsuccessful because OOP is not the only form of code re-use. In fact an essential part of OOP is that a block of reusable code have a clearly-defined purpose, clearly-defined capabilities, and a simple clearly-defined interface that other code can use to invoke that purpose and those abilities - and that's a pretty smart thing to do even without objects.)

Agree, I think that the explanation is something along the lines of limiting to "natural" forms. Only with the addition that humans are apparently not "natural" form by that religion, which makes LOT of sense.

6 hours ago, Scotty said:
7 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

But the creation of clone forms would be easier via the scanner than via object-oriented programming.

The scanner likely uses OOP as well.

The scanner CAN'T be used to make clone form without Tedd's programming on the TF gun.

6 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
On 02/26/2017 at 1:07 AM, hkmaly said:

Not invalidate. It will just make them harder to use. Invalidating would mean that the way humans are constructed would radically change, which I would assume would be outside the options of Will of magic even if it WANTED to do something so complicated.

Reminder: There is nothing known to be outside Magic's ability besides time-travel (into the past). 

You are mixing up magic and Will of Magic. Sure, it would technically be possible to rewrite universe that way with magic, just like it will be possible to change Uryuoms. But it would be outside what is Will of magic allowed to do - not ABLE to do, it's question of competence (although she may not be ABLE to do it either, it's possible it can't really USE all magic it sets laws for).

3 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

I suspect the religius restriction aspect came up more as an excuse for Dan to comment on the fact that a government which is supposedly open to all religions, still bases many of its laws on the dictates of one particular religion.

I think that Dan might not be as good in programming as Tedd is. Common problem of most sci-fi and fantasy writers: lacking knowledge their characters obviously have. In fact, most sci-fi and fantasy writers are worse that their characters not only in area of knowledge, but also strength, dexterity, constitution, wisdom, charisma and intelligence; nevertheless, we still enjoy reading about such characters too much to wait for actual real-live demigod to write about them :)

 

 

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2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

You are  mixing up magic and Will of Magic. Sure, it would technically be possible to rewrite universe that way with magic, just like it will be possible to change Uryuoms. But it would be outside what is Will of magic allowed to do - not ABLE to do, it's question of competence (although she may not be ABLE to do it either, it's possible it can't really USE all magic it sets laws for).

To be honest I have no idea what the difference is between "Magic" and "The Will of Magic".  I have no idea what one can do that the other can't.  I am working on the assumption that the Will of Magic is capable of anything magic can do just as a commonsense default but it's possible that there's limits in there somewhere. 

We don't even know what the Will of Magic does besides give out spells and set rules.

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7 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:
22 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

You are  mixing up magic and Will of Magic. Sure, it would technically be possible to rewrite universe that way with magic, just like it will be possible to change Uryuoms. But it would be outside what is Will of magic allowed to do - not ABLE to do, it's question of competence (although she may not be ABLE to do it either, it's possible it can't really USE all magic it sets laws for).

To be honest I have no idea what the difference is between "Magic" and "The Will of Magic".  I have no idea what one can do that the other can't.

Obviously, I don't know anything sure either. But we know that Uryuom transformation are "technically magic" but not something Will of Magic is able or at least willing to change.

7 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I am working on the assumption that the Will of Magic is capable of anything magic can do just as a commonsense default but it's possible that there's limits in there somewhere. 

I don't think there is anything "common-sense" on that assumption.

If you assume Will of Magic is capable of anything magic can do, without any effort, it means it's god-like entity effectively playing with universe. In such case, the rules she abides to would be just play-rules to "make the game more interesting". It would still means there are rules.

10 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

We don't even know what the Will of Magic does besides give out spells and set rules.

We don't know what is Will of Magic based on. It can be god-like being older than universe playing with it. Or it can be originally just set of simple rules which got sort-of-sentience because that's what magic does to abstract concepts (look at any Death, ideally Discworld one of course). Or something else, although these two seems like opposite ends of spectrum of possibilities to me.

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4 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I don't think there is anything "common-sense" on that assumption.

If you assume Will of Magic is capable of anything magic can do, without any effort, it means it's god-like entity effectively playing with universe. In such case, the rules she abides to would be just play-rules to "make the game more interesting". It would still means there are rules.

Why would you assume that magic can empower individuals to do things it itself cannot?  Magic can have to deal with any number of limits besides what it can do.  When it can do it comes to mind.

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39 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:
46 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I don't think there is anything "common-sense" on that assumption.

If you assume Will of Magic is capable of anything magic can do, without any effort, it means it's god-like entity effectively playing with universe. In such case, the rules she abides to would be just play-rules to "make the game more interesting". It would still means there are rules.

Why would you assume that magic can empower individuals to do things it itself cannot?  Magic can have to deal with any number of limits besides what it can do.  When it can do it comes to mind.

The same reason I don't assume Einstein mom was better physics than him.

Although, maybe bureaucracy is better way to think about it: the competences are divided in way which allows better control instead of based on level of power.

Of course if you ask for my motivation, I'm trying to find way how to make Will of Magic less obviously OP. Or, considering this is story, less Mary Sue.

There is precedence: Immortals have rules which limits what they can do. They are self-imposed, true. Maybe the Wills of Magic for various species agreed on some rules before as well. Although that would make them too similar to humans, and I still thinks that when Disco Wizard was describing will of magic he made it seem MORE human than it is, not less.

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I don't think the Will of Magic is a separate entity from Magic. As in it's the energies and such that make up magic that are sentient and self-determining, not a separate mentality that directs and structures them. Back in squirrel prophet, DW didn't say he was there on behalf of the Will of Magic, he said he was there on behalf of Magic Itself. He stated that magic has a "will and objectives of its own". He also provides some insight into why magic can drastically change for humans but not uryuoms. He mentions they are a species with magic interwoven into their very nature. To change how magic works for uryuoms, you have to fundamentally change what a uryuom is, and the wording he uses on that page implies that magic is unable to enact such a fundamental change, at least to a drastic degree. Also there's the fact that it's a sentient, reality-defying force. If it wants itself to be applied differently in different circumstances, it certainly can.

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57 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

I don't think the Will of Magic is a separate entity from Magic. As in it's the energies and such that make up magic that are sentient and self-determining, not a separate mentality that directs and structures them. Back in squirrel prophet, DW didn't say he was there on behalf of the Will of Magic, he said he was there on behalf of Magic Itself.

He also said he makes no claim of truly understanding how the mind of such a thing works. Or minds. If applicable.

So, some degree of plurality is possible.

57 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

To change how magic works for uryuoms, you have to fundamentally change what a uryuom is, and the wording he uses on that page implies that magic is unable to enact such a fundamental change, at least to a drastic degree.

Which is why I don't think the magic would make fundamental change in what human is, which would probably be only way to invalidate Tedd's stored forms.

(Note that necessary, speculation about nature of magic are going to be wilder than usual. Still, I think it is possible to get some results.)

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57 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

He also said he makes no claim of truly understanding how the mind of such a thing works. Or minds. If applicable.

So, some degree of plurality is possible.

Certainly. I imagine if it would be difficult to determine if the energy of magic would count as one massive whole, or countless separate pieces working in concert.

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It could also be a sort of superorganism, like an ant colony, with countless fragments working together, yet a consensus is reached between the fragments without actually having any sort of debate or leadership among them. Not as single-minded as a Borg Collective, but united in purpose.

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13 hours ago, ijuin said:

It could also be a sort of superorganism, like an ant colony, with countless fragments working together, yet a consensus is reached between the fragments without actually having any sort of debate or leadership among them. Not as single-minded as a Borg Collective, but united in purpose.

You mean TNG Borg Collective, First Contact one or VOY one? :)

Yes, it can be superorganism reaching consensus without debate in some distributed way.

Or it can work WITHOUT the need of consensus. If you have deterministic rules for reaching decision, you don't need to contact anyone else: you can just execute the process and reach the same decision any other part of organism would reach anyway.

21 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Certainly. I imagine if it would be difficult to determine if the energy of magic would count as one massive whole, or countless separate pieces working in concert.

Difficult? It can be provably undecidable question.

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7 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

You mean TNG Borg Collective, First Contact one or VOY one? :)

Yes, it can be superorganism reaching consensus without debate in some distributed way.

Or it can work WITHOUT the need of consensus. If you have deterministic rules for reaching decision, you don't need to contact anyone else: you can just execute the process and reach the same decision any other part of organism would reach anyway.

Difficult? It can be provably undecidable question.

Maybe we can stick with the computer model here:

basicsysarch.gif

Now in the case of Magic, the hardware layer would be stuff like energy and processes needed for spells and such to function, the user layer and libraries are the spells and such that humans, Uryuoms, etc can use, and the kernel layer is the api for which the user layer interacts with the hardware layer.

Now Uryoums not being affected by a system change suggests that for them, the user layer can directly interact with the hardware layer without much need for the kernel all the kernel is for, after all, is to offload a lot of the work needed to get software to use hardware which reduces the amount of code. For humans though, they rely on the kernel as the method of working with the hardware and any change in the kernel could affect how the software works and could even break it entirely much like how Window XP and later had checks in place to detect if someone attempts to install a windows 9x program software developers had adjusted to make similar checks which is why we went straight from windows 8 to windows 10 because windows 9 would potentially break everything.

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41 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Now Uryoums not being affected by a system change suggests that for them, the user layer can directly interact with the hardware layer without much need for the kernel all the kernel is for, after all, is to offload a lot of the work needed to get software to use hardware which reduces the amount of code. For humans though, they rely on the kernel as the method of working with the hardware and any change in the kernel could affect how the software works and could even break it entirely

Alternatively, kernel can have multiple APIs, with Uryoums using stable API (like POSIX) and humans using mostly something newer, with more features but unstable.

43 minutes ago, Scotty said:

much like how Window XP and later had checks in place to detect if someone attempts to install a windows 9x program software developers had adjusted to make similar checks which is why we went straight from windows 8 to windows 10 because windows 9 would potentially break everything.

DOS (originally Quick&Dirty Operation System) was mostly build from fixes and patches, with minimal amount of "core" code. Windows 95 itself were extender running on TOP of DOS instead of replacing it. Most code of windows must be for providing backward compatibility including compatibility with bugs. If magic would be anything like this, the world would already not exist.

... unless magic don't want to get public for similar reason while nVidia don't want to get public with it's hardware specifications for building device drivers: being afraid that too much use will reveal how much bugs are there.

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7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Or it can work WITHOUT the need of consensus. If you have deterministic rules for reaching decision, you don't need to contact anyone else: you can just execute the process and reach the same decision any other part of organism would reach anyway.

If things are TOO deterministic, then there's no need for an aware mind at all, since it's just pure processing at that point.

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17 hours ago, ijuin said:
On 03/01/2017 at 11:53 PM, hkmaly said:

Or it can work WITHOUT the need of consensus. If you have deterministic rules for reaching decision, you don't need to contact anyone else: you can just execute the process and reach the same decision any other part of organism would reach anyway.

If things are TOO deterministic, then there's no need for an aware mind at all, since it's just pure processing at that point.

Yes.

Nothing Disco Wizard said confirms magic has aware mind. He's fairly certain magic has objectives, but being aware?

Or, to be little less drastic, "needing being aware?" ... it's possible that magic is aware for purpose of optimizing drama, but that operates locally inside some set of rules. Meanwhile, the big stuff like when to reset is deterministic and doesn't utilize awareness at all.

If magic has conscious (big if), doing reset may still NOT be conscious decision and is decided on subconscious level instead.

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20 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Yes.

Nothing Disco Wizard said confirms magic has aware mind. He's fairly certain magic has objectives, but being aware?

Or, to be little less drastic, "needing being aware?" ... it's possible that magic is aware for purpose of optimizing drama, but that operates locally inside some set of rules. Meanwhile, the big stuff like when to reset is deterministic and doesn't utilize awareness at all.

If magic has conscious (big if), doing reset may still NOT be conscious decision and is decided on subconscious level instead.

We also know Magic seems to have a sense of humor and occasionally trolls.  That argues for some kind of consciousness.

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37 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Yes.

Nothing Disco Wizard said confirms magic has aware mind. He's fairly certain magic has objectives, but being aware?

Or, to be little less drastic, "needing being aware?" ... it's possible that magic is aware for purpose of optimizing drama, but that operates locally inside some set of rules. Meanwhile, the big stuff like when to reset is deterministic and doesn't utilize awareness at all.

If magic has conscious (big if), doing reset may still NOT be conscious decision and is decided on subconscious level instead.

We also know Magic seems to have a sense of humor and occasionally trolls.  That argues for some kind of consciousness.

I wouldn't be so sure about that, but more importantly, again, that might be some local reaction, not able to utilize all power of magic.

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Being able to distinguish humor from non-humor and drama from non-drama reliably is a much more fuzzy and less deterministic matter--it's much less a matter of sorting things into categories than of being able to model and consider complete hypothetical scenarios. It's not "break this down into numbers", like computer processing, so much as "forecasting the reactions of people". If this does not actually require a consciousness per se, it definitely requires something that can analyze conscious minds in detail in order to discern what they would do/feel.

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19 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Being able to distinguish humor from non-humor and drama from non-drama reliably is a much more fuzzy and less deterministic matter--it's much less a matter of sorting things into categories than of being able to model and consider complete hypothetical scenarios. It's not "break this down into numbers", like computer processing, so much as "forecasting the reactions of people". If this does not actually require a consciousness per se, it definitely requires something that can analyze conscious minds in detail in order to discern what they would do/feel.

While we see characters talking about drama and humor, the examples we were given includes Ellen having blond hair when burned out. It may be deliberate trolling of course ... or magic might not be THAT good in distinguishing humor from non-humor and drama from non-drama. Or, possibly, what is called "magic flair for drama" might not be actually about drama but about something similar, easier to determine.

Or, as I said, it's something local, not related to whatever decides it's time for reset.

Oh. One part of my reasoning I didn't shared yet: If the part of magic deciding reset have sense of humor, it's not GOOD sense of humor, it's more like trolling and "practical" jokes. I would be very afraid to live in world with magic like that. And if it has flair for drama, then the reset won't happen, because Tedd, Adrian or someone will prevent it at last moment ... no matter how illogical it will be.

Except ... few months back, I was saying I'm convinced the reset will not happen or wouldn't be as tragic as they fear. The more the story unveils, the less I'm convinced about that ...

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33 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

While we see characters talking about drama and humor, the examples we were given includes Ellen having blond hair when burned out. It may be deliberate trolling of course ... or magic might not be THAT good in distinguishing humor from non-humor and drama from non-drama. Or, possibly, what is called "magic flair for drama" might not be actually about drama but about something similar, easier to determine.

Or, as I said, it's something local, not related to whatever decides it's time for reset.

Oh. One part of my reasoning I didn't shared yet: If the part of magic deciding reset have sense of humor, it's not GOOD sense of humor, it's more like trolling and "practical" jokes. I would be very afraid to live in world with magic like that. And if it has flair for drama, then the reset won't happen, because Tedd, Adrian or someone will prevent it at last moment ... no matter how illogical it will be.

Except ... few months back, I was saying I'm convinced the reset will not happen or wouldn't be as tragic as they fear. The more the story unveils, the less I'm convinced about that ...

The other possibility is that the Will of Magic is the collective subconsciousness of all humans, every spell is fueled by the thoughts of the entire human population, the Will itself is essentially EGS's version of Coyote.

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On 01/03/2017 at 11:25 PM, Scotty said:

why we went straight from windows 8 to windows 10 because windows 9 would potentially break everything.

Which was fitting as 8 was 8 because it was after 7, 7 was 7 as it was after Vista (6), and Longhorn/Vista was 6 because XP was NT5.1, NT5 being 2000.  Now, I'm pretty sure XP logically deserved its own version number externally if not internally (7 and 8 were internally 6.1 and 6.2), so 10 (internally also 10) could be considered to have brought the version numbers to where they logically should have been.

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20 hours ago, Scotty said:

The other possibility is that the Will of Magic is the collective subconsciousness of all humans, every spell is fueled by the thoughts of the entire human population, the Will itself is essentially EGS's version of Coyote.

Is that really "other" possibility?

I mean, it's possible, but it won't really answer the question of how it reaches decision. It will still leave all the options: "magic reset is outside it's scope", "magic reset is decided deterministically" and "magic reset is decided by consensus".

8 hours ago, HarJIT said:
On 03/02/2017 at 0:25 AM, Scotty said:

why we went straight from windows 8 to windows 10 because windows 9 would potentially break everything.

Which was fitting as 8 was 8 because it was after 7, 7 was 7 as it was after Vista (6), and Longhorn/Vista was 6 because XP was NT5.1, NT5 being 2000.  Now, I'm pretty sure XP logically deserved its own version number externally if not internally (7 and 8 were internally 6.1 and 6.2), so 10 (internally also 10) could be considered to have brought the version numbers to where they logically should have been.

Considering the internal number will continue to grow but the external is supposed to stay 10, wouldn't that be pointless?

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