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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 8, 2012 7:56:57 GMT
And so comes the greater paradox of Coyote and the Canyon. Human sees a canyon, imagines Coyote created it. But then, Coyote retroactively is the reason why the canyon exists. But if Coyote is the only reason the canyon exists, then how did it exist in the first place, before man imagined Coyote? Who said Coyote becomes the only reason the canyon exists? "Who put the stars in the sky? Coyote will say he did it himself, and it is not a lie . . . However, I can unequivocally say the stars were always in the sky." Whatever is being said here, it's not that Coyote becomes the only reason the stars are in the sky Exactly, and the key to the overlay theory is the notion that this also applies to the movement of ether, for lack of a better term. I've used this example before but what the hell, here it is again... So according to my overlay theory, before there were 'Pomps humans were regularly dying anyway and their energy was rejoining the ether along with their stories. However, the dying process is traumatic and the living lacked answers about exactly what happens to the dead. Over time humans comforted themselves with stories about beings who could provide guidance during the dying process and believed in them, and by doing so made the situation more complex. For now I'll just say they began building up layers of belief and ether on/around the flow and when a critical mass was reached there developed a persona associated with that buildup. The persona can be interacted with apart from the flow from which it emerges, and therefore it can do things that the flow was not capable of before but its free will is limited, its main function will be whatever the basis of the original flow of ether accomplishes. This perpetuates the myths that perpetuate the 'Pomp. That lends some stability to the situation but the beliefs of the living change so things are not static. Guides come and go over the centuries, new ones are created and old ones disappear but even if they're destroyed the underlying flow is still there. This process gives the appearance of a paradox if the difference between the cause [the flow] and the persona [the 'Pomp] isn't understood. The dead who believed they were interacting with this 'Pomp were in fact interacting with the flow of ether onto which the persona is overlaid. [random] The advantage of a system like this from a literary sense is that it permits pretty much any mythical element to interact with any other, even contradictory ones, without sacrificing internal consistency as long as it has a central thread, which in this case is Antimony's story. It also permits a reasonable framework for genuine paradoxical interactions involving alternate time lines and pretty much whatever else the author wishes to include. [/random]
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Post by Nnelg on Dec 8, 2012 13:47:03 GMT
Who said Coyote becomes the only reason the canyon exists? "Who put the stars in the sky? Coyote will say he did it himself, and it is not a lie . . . However, I can unequivocally say the stars were always in the sky." Whatever is being said here, it's not that Coyote becomes the only reason the stars are in the sky Exactly, and the key to the overlay theory is the notion that this also applies to the movement of ether, for lack of a better term. I've used this example before but what the hell, here it is again... So according to my overlay theory, before there were 'Pomps humans were regularly dying anyway and their energy was rejoining the ether along with their stories. However, the dying process is traumatic and the living lacked answers about exactly what happens to the dead. Over time humans comforted themselves with stories about beings who could provide guidance during the dying process and believed in them, and by doing so made the situation more complex. But that doesn't really apply in this case. Remember Jones' footprints? They existed long before the supposed "spark of inspiration" that created her ever could. Retrograde creation is either total in the Gunnerverse, or it does not exist at all. So, from any in-universe observer's viewpoint, it would appear as if Coyote existed first, then the Canyon existed because of Coyote. Therefore, it is a Paradox: Coyote is the cause of what he claims triggered his own creation. Also, how is this differentiable in any way from if Coyote had not been formed from the imagination of mankind? Honestly, it isn't. Now, a simpler explanation for these hypothetical observations would be that Coyote is wrong. That explanation is also in line with all the observations we have from the comic. Therefore, I conclude that Coyote is wrong.
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Post by Georgie L on Dec 8, 2012 15:19:02 GMT
It seems too simple and Jones must also be wrong for that theory to make sense.
The simplest theory isn't necessarily the correct one.
She states as much, that Coyote and other beings put the stars in the sky but the stars were always there, I took this to fit with the theory that it actually is a paradox, but the ether pretty much runs on paradox anyhow.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 8, 2012 17:26:47 GMT
Remember Jones' footprints? They existed long before the supposed "spark of inspiration" that created her ever could. Did they? They couldn't have been discovered until long after that spark of inspiration. ;D [Also I think there is some irony in using a hypothetical in-universe objective observer thought experiment to prove Jones preexisted, as I think that is what her myth has been rewritten into.]
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Post by djublonskopf on Dec 8, 2012 21:27:29 GMT
Exactly, and the key to the overlay theory is the notion that this also applies to the movement of ether, for lack of a better term. I've used this example before but what the hell, here it is again... So according to my overlay theory, before there were 'Pomps humans were regularly dying anyway and their energy was rejoining the ether along with their stories. However, the dying process is traumatic and the living lacked answers about exactly what happens to the dead. Over time humans comforted themselves with stories about beings who could provide guidance during the dying process and believed in them, and by doing so made the situation more complex. But that doesn't really apply in this case. Remember Jones' footprints? They existed long before the supposed "spark of inspiration" that created her ever could. Retrograde creation is either total in the Gunnerverse, or it does not exist at all. So, from any in-universe observer's viewpoint, it would appear as if Coyote existed first, then the Canyon existed because of Coyote. Therefore, it is a Paradox: Coyote is the cause of what he claims triggered his own creation. Also, how is this differentiable in any way from if Coyote had not been formed from the imagination of mankind? Honestly, it isn't. Now, a simpler explanation for these hypothetical observations would be that Coyote is wrong. That explanation is also in line with all the observations we have from the comic. Therefore, I conclude that Coyote is wrong. Jones' footprint exists now, in rock that was likely laid down a long time ago. Doesn't mean her footprint was laid down a long time ago, nor does it mean her footprint wasn't. But nobody can actually say when the footprint appeared in the rock. The stars are in their current positions now. Coyote remembers putting them there. Jones remembers something different, but also claims he isn't lying. Is Coyote's memory wrong, or is Jones', or both, or neither? If the Ether is truly messing with causality, time, space and matter, nobody can say for sure whose memories are "right".
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Post by Nnelg on Dec 9, 2012 3:08:42 GMT
The thing is though, those footprints exist because Jones left them. If the ether is at all consistent, and Coyote's theory is correct, then the same would be true of Coyote's Canyon: just like the Annan Waters, it would have existed because Coyote put it there.
So, Coyote would have created what caused his own creation. That's a paradox.
If you're going to come up with some new theory involving "retroactive memories" to explain this, you're going to have to prove that's even possible before you can prove Coyote's theory.
Until that time, I think my case against Coyote's theory is pretty solid.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 9, 2012 6:04:14 GMT
If the various powerful beings tell the truth when they say they put the stars in the sky, but the stars preexisted them, then of course their memories would have to be retroactive. Same goes for all the gods and goddesses' memories of creations and probably many other events. Also I am not speculating that Jones is caused by the footprints. I am speculating that Jones is a living statue; her myth has changed to include the role of the hypothetical objective observer required by modern faith in the belief of evolutionary life-history, the stories told by historians, and the currently-understood geologic timeline. [edit] Here are two hypothetical situations. A magician who genuinely believes in magic and devils really wants something devilish done so he properly performs a ritual, the expected devil appears, but in the process of granting his wish it willfully does something surprising that makes him question the wisdom of performing the ritual or the way he performed it (but not the existence of devils). A scientist who genuinely believes in dinosaurs and the geologic timeline digs carefully for fossils, sincerely hoping for a fantastic discovery, and finds the dinosaur footprints that he expected but in the same strata of these are human footprints that surprise him and make him question his methodology and theories (but not the existence of dinosaurs or humans).[/edit] And who said the ether was consistent? It might be in the sense of some ultimate property-less substance but the laws and tendencies the material experiences from it are much more likely to be the result of consensus. We can point to flows of ether regarding things that happen consistently from the perspective of living humans but if all of the horrors of mankind can be given form with it, shouldn't some of those things be mutually exclusive?
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Post by Nnelg on Dec 9, 2012 12:44:02 GMT
If the various powerful beings tell the truth when they say they put the stars in the sky, but the stars preexisted them, then of course their memories would have to be retroactive. Same goes for all the gods and goddesses' memories of creations and probably many other events. Who ever said the stars preexisted them? Jones only said the stars preexisted humanity. In fact, the deities of various cultures actually being as old as the earth itself fits perfectly in line with the notion that they exist independently of human imagination. Also I am not speculating that Jones is caused by the footprints. Nor am I. Here are two hypothetical situations. A simpler explanation of each is that the devil and the footprint already existed before said events. And who said the ether was consistent? Nobody. But if it isn't, then no theory can ever truly apply to it other than the Ethereal Tenet.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 9, 2012 22:27:35 GMT
Hmm, I think I need to back up and clarify this. My theory and Coyote's thought experiment are not identical. I think there is support for my theory in Coyote's thought experiment but he is playing fast and loose with some of his terms, though I would argue that in some sense of the words he uses what he says is probably true. That is why I do not think my theory is presented with a paradox when a formulation of Coyote's thought experiment leads to one. More specifically, my theory isn't dependent on retroactive creation by human agency, though it allows for the possibility of same (or in other words, if that turns out to be the case I'm not tossing the rest of the theory on that alone). Though their natures and memories may be mutable based on current manipulation of the ether through human belief, imagination, inspiration, or myth, I would hold that all of the gods who do not lie when they say they created the stars can be said to be telling the truth because both that is what they believe and because they are emergent from the process which created the stars. Whichever came first is irrelevant, likewise with Jones and the spark. I am also holding out the possibility that current physical evidence is not as reliable as it might seem. We've got dualism or perhaps an etheric monism here, not materialism with exceptions. Or to put it another way, there is magic. And who said the ether was consistent? Nobody. But if it isn't, then no theory can ever truly apply to it other than the Ethereal Tenet. Then the Court has no purpose to its existence. But I think you are confusing consistency with immutability or something.
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Post by Nnelg on Dec 10, 2012 1:43:17 GMT
Hmm, I think I need to back up and clarify this. My theory and Coyote's thought experiment are not identical. Then I'll need you to spell out, as unambiguously as possible, exactly what your theory is; if you would, please. If it has anything to do with ethereal being forming due to human thoughts and consciousness, I'd like some additional clarification of this sentence as well: Whichever came first is irrelevant, likewise with Jones and the spark. I am also holding out the possibility that current physical evidence is not as reliable as it might seem. That's no small assumption there. The current evidence is all we have to go on, so if your theory relies on more than one or two individual pieces of it being not what they seem, I'm afraid I would not be able to accept it. We've got dualism or perhaps an etheric monism here, not materialism with exceptions. Or to put it another way, there is magic. If you're suggesting a partial application of the Etheric Tenet, then I'd be willing to work with that. Then the Court has no purpose to its existence. But I think you are confusing consistency with immutability or something. Correct, actually. If the Ether isn't consistent, then it would be impossible to create theories that will consistently allow accurate predictions. In fact, if the Ether isn't consistent then Science itself doesn't apply to it, and no explanation for how it works could ever be more thorough than "just because, ok?". This may actually be the case, since Anja implied that the Scientific Method is not applicable to the Ether. Or it may be the Ether is usually consistent, but that occasionally stuff happens for literally no reason at all. Either way, it does bring into question the futility of the Court's mission; but that's more a philosophical debate, which goes beyond the scope of the present argument.
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Post by neurokeen on Dec 10, 2012 5:03:54 GMT
If the Ether isn't consistent, then it would be impossible to create theories that will consistently allow accurate predictions. In fact, if the Ether isn't consistent then Science itself doesn't apply to it, and no explanation for how it works could ever be more thorough than "just because, ok?". This may actually be the case, since Anja implied that the Scientific Method is not applicable to the Ether. Or it may be the Ether is usually consistent, but that occasionally stuff happens for literally no reason at all. Either way, it does bring into question the futility of the Court's mission; but that's more a philosophical debate, which goes beyond the scope of the present argument. The argument as presented has unintended consequences. Many of what we consider 'sciences' are indeed contingent upon accidents of history - take biomedical sciences for example. What we know about medicine in humans is contingent upon those accidents of history that made us into humans with the biology we have today, and can change as the population genetics of humans changes throughout time. Really, replace with anything beyond physics and chemistry (well, the argument could be made for either of those as well, it's just a common assumption that they are consistent through time, but you can alter conditions such that what we consider 'laws of chemistry' don't hold... but I'm thinking particularly the social sciences) and you have a subject matter of study which is contingent upon a specific time-slice in history and those accidents of history which preceded it. Even if the ether can change based on social factors in human societies, then, you could easily study it in the same way you study other social phenomena - with the understanding that the findings only apply to a very local time-frame embedded in a social context. And clearly there is some kind of regularity that is exploitable at least over some periods of time, given the fantastic technologies (such as from the Donlans) we've seen based on etheric powers. That alone is evidence that the court's research isn't exactly useless. One additional point - non-consistent systems, particularly stochastic systems are still able to be studied by scientific means, else thermodynamics would be impenetrable. The only thing really, then, that seems to be a problem is if, as you say, "things happen for no reason". That would be defeating a naive 'No Miracles' axiom that Scientific Realism hangs on its wall. Of course, identifying a 'Miracle' in this context would be impractical (read as: pretty much impossible), as you'd have to rule out a troupe of wanderers in the Alps experiencing a drug-induced hallucination as the cause for your odd observation in the ether, if this is indeed how the ether tends to (reliably) respond to these kinds of things. In this sense, I would hazard to guess that Anja's comment would really be more about anyone studying the ether not being able to access or observe the preceding conditions to any particular happening to make a clear connection upon which to build theories. Or it could have simply meant that it didn't mesh nicely with existing sciences, and that's all that was meant. As an aside, I seem to remember vaguely the same comment but can't find the comic number. Would you by any chance?
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 10, 2012 5:06:46 GMT
Hmm, I think I need to back up and clarify this. My theory and Coyote's thought experiment are not identical. Then I'll need you to spell out, as unambiguously as possible, exactly what your theory is; if you would, please. For that I'll redirect you to my posts on the first page of this thread. If something in particular is unclear I'll expand. If it has anything to do with ethereal being forming due to human thoughts and consciousness, I'd like some additional clarification of this sentence as well: "Whichever came first is irrelevant, likewise with Jones and the spark." Not as such though I will clarify anyway. Though the mechanism for creation in my theory is the same [the ether] regardless of whoever came before whatever, I am leaving the door open to retroactive creation of beings because of the possibility of either timelessness or particular preferences for particular events within the ether. In the latter case, and if Jones looked like a blond human lady since the creation of the earth, then I can't rule out the inevitability of humans within the ether as both reasons why that humans would form later and for Jones forming at that point (but other human forms were possible for Jones); if that includes a necessary preference for hot blond women among those eventual humans then imaginings and inspiration do become involved, and the preference may have made this particular form a certainty. Those are not paradoxical because they rely on the structure of the Gunnerverse instead of particular events. A genuine paradox may be possible through the timelessness of the ether, though. Further clarification: A preference for human forms within the nature of the ether would also explain why humans are intelligent but animals are not, at least not in the same degree, since it has been formspring'd that animals in the Gunnerverse are not exactly like real animals. I think it's more likely that the chance formation of a stone into a human shape caused the ether to animate it, therefore the traits of Jones (female, blond, etc) are at least partly due to chance, but an innate preference is the ultimate cause. That's no small assumption there. The current evidence is all we have to go on, so if your theory relies on more than one or two individual pieces of it being not what they seem, I'm afraid I would not be able to accept it. The Gunnerverse is a universe with magic. That is not an assumption. Consider the following: Suppose in my first hypothetical situation the devil-summoner wanted great wealth and the devil made a big pile of treasure appear. Whatever the real nature of our own reality is, we humans apparently operate in a realm of material events with predictable laws. So, if the coins and items that the devil makes appear have typical traces of being formed by normal human craft than it is easier for us to believe that the devil magically transported them there instead of creating them [apparently] from nothing on the spot. But because the Gunnerverse is at least a functional dualism between matter and ether there may be no basis for that preference other than because it's what we're used to. There is no reason the devil couldn't create a perfect hoax fossil. Fear not, even if we must regard physical evidence with more skepticism than we do in real life that is not the same as tossing it out, and we can still observe repeatable phenomena. If you're suggesting a partial application of the Etheric Tenet, then I'd be willing to work with that. Depends on what you mean by "partial." Even when something cannot be explained fully it can sometimes be explained partly, or placed in a useful context, or carefully observed to be made sense of later. I am suggesting that the etherial tenet should be applied when there's nothing better to go on. That is a position of pragmatism, not preference. I suspect that as the Court shrinks the box wherein the etherial tenet is enshrined there may be an infinite regress that never results in a final answer but the flipside of that is that the frontier of ignorance about things etherial can always be pushed back a little more. And the Court scientists will be perpetually gainfully employed. In other words, I think the etherial tenet is probably unvanquishable from a philosophical standpoint in the Gunnerverse, but from a practical standpoint there may eventually come a point in time when the Court knows so much about the ether that they will be unable to formulate a question that they don't know the answer to. They may cease to be considered living and/or humans at some point during the quest but that is not relevant to the question. ;D This may actually be the case, since Anja implied that the Scientific Method is not applicable to the Ether. Or it may be the Ether is usually consistent, but that occasionally stuff happens for literally no reason at all. Either way, it does bring into question the futility of the Court's mission; but that's more a philosophical debate, which goes beyond the scope of the present argument. Far be it from me to start a philosophical debate but I would like to distinguish uncaused phenomena from something with no possibly-discernible cause. There are probably many things that happen in the ether that cannot ever be tied directly to a cause, but a genuine uncaused cause is theologically problematic. I should probably mention again that in many philosophical constructions of the ether the physical laws are ultimately functions of the ether and not innate properties of matter or space. So studying those laws in the Gunnerverse is probably one aspect of studying the ether. [edit] Whoops I see I was partially ninja'd. Welcome to the forums, Neurokeen, in case I haven't already said so! I think the comic you're referring to was in the chapter when Anja was teaching Antimony how to use her blinker stone, which I think was ch. 21. [/edit]
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Post by Nnelg on Dec 10, 2012 12:05:30 GMT
The argument as presented has unintended consequences. Many of what we consider 'sciences' are indeed contingent upon accidents of history - take biomedical sciences for example. What we know about medicine in humans is contingent upon those accidents of history that made us into humans with the biology we have today, and can change as the population genetics of humans changes throughout time. Really, replace with anything beyond physics and chemistry (well, the argument could be made for either of those as well, it's just a common assumption that they are consistent through time, but you can alter conditions such that what we consider 'laws of chemistry' don't hold... but I'm thinking particularly the social sciences) and you have a subject matter of study which is contingent upon a specific time-slice in history and those accidents of history which preceded it. Ah, but all those things are based on consistent (we presume) physical laws. Behind medicine, we find chemistry. The changes in these systems are also based on the physical laws behind them, and as such are themselves classifiable and explainable. Human genetics may change, but sufficiently advanced chemical and medical knowledge would be able to accurately predict in what direction genetic drift is taking humanity, what the results of those changes will be. (That may take more knowledge than is practically possible to obtain, but hypothetically it is knowable.) What I'm talking about here is true inconsistency, the kind of which does not exist in the real world. Stuff happening for literally no reason at all; true randomness. It is mathematically impossible to describe such a system in a way that can be used to make accurate predictions. If it isn't possible to make accurate predictions with your explanation (whatever that may be), then effectively it's no better than a "just because, okay?". Now, I'm not arguing that the Ether is this way. That' beyond the scope of our current discussion, which would be rendered moot if it is, anyways. I'm leaning more towards the " usually consistent, but not always" explanation. (It doesn't matter if you could "explain" the truly random stuff by someone somewhere having an acid trip, as that theory is neither useful nor falsifiable.) (Such a system would hypothetically have a mean, but not a variance; and so it would be impossible to make predictions with any quantifiable degree of accuracy.) As an aside, I seem to remember vaguely the same comment but can't find the comic number. Here you go: www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=517If something in particular is unclear I'll expand. I think I understand... And I think I'll stick to debunking Coyote's theory, for now. Yours is a great deal more esoteric. Depends on what you mean by "partial." [...] I suspect that as the Court shrinks the box wherein the etherial tenet is enshrined there may be an infinite regress that never results in a final answer but the flipside of that is that the frontier of ignorance about things etherial can always be pushed back a little more. Something like that is what I meant. (Except that I'd imagine there would also be random occasions where the "frontier of ignorance" actually expands due to fresh unexplained phenomenon, but that's beside the point.) Anyways, There is still that paradox in Coyote's theory that needs to be resolved...
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Post by legion on Dec 10, 2012 12:33:39 GMT
I think this can all be solved pretty simply: reality and the ether influence each others, *but*, the ether is not bound to time, so it can influence the reality at any point of time, so that a real invent at insant T can leave a mark in the ether which in turn leaves a mark in reality at instant T minus 1 million.
This can thus create positive feedback loops (where the same event is reinforced by its own interpretation being sent back in time by the ether) and replacements of primal cause (where an originally explainable event gets rewritten as having a supernatural cause as the result of its own incorrect interpretation).
Then Jones, being completely hermetic to the ether, and being there originally, get to witness the original configuration before retroactive etheric influence.
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Post by bansheekitty on Dec 10, 2012 14:08:16 GMT
I think this can all be solved pretty simply: reality and the ether influence each others, *but*, the ether is not bound to time, so it can influence the reality at any point of time, so that a real invent at insant T can leave a mark in the ether which in turn leaves a mark in reality at instant T minus 1 million. This is what I have been assuming.
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Post by Nnelg on Dec 10, 2012 15:15:09 GMT
I think this can all be solved pretty simply: reality and the ether influence each others, *but*, the ether is not bound to time, so it can influence the reality at any point of time, so that a real invent at insant T can leave a mark in the ether which in turn leaves a mark in reality at instant T minus 1 million. This can thus create positive feedback loops (where the same event is reinforced by its own interpretation being sent back in time by the ether) and replacements of primal cause (where an originally explainable event gets rewritten as having a supernatural cause as the result of its own incorrect interpretation). Then Jones, being completely hermetic to the ether, and being there originally, get to witness the original configuration before retroactive etheric influence. Except... We don't have an out-of-time view. We see what could be interpreted as a stable time loop. And that's still a paradox. It could be resolved by saying there was an "original" reason for the canyon which got replaced, but that does not mean such is the best explanation. We see a canyon, and from our point of view, the reason it exists is Coyote. But Coyote claims the canyon sparks the human imagination which created him. So either: A, he's right and we have to resolve the paradox; or B, he's wrong and was created by an outside force. Now, "retroactive creation" is a rather complex and convoluted explanation, while "external force" is much simpler. Therefore, lacking any sort of external evidence that "retroactive creation" is even possible, I'd say that the best answer is the simplest one: that Coyote is wrong and he was created by some other process.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 10, 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Just in case anyone isn't familiar with the ether as a mythic and/or philosophical concept here is a link to it on wiki. [edit] It took me a long time but I have gone back and dropped in links in my previous posts, as promised. [/edit]
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Søren
Junior Member
Pursuing Authenticity
Posts: 78
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Post by Søren on Dec 10, 2012 19:20:33 GMT
Just in case anyone isn't familiar with the ether as a mythic and/or philosophical concept here is a link to it on wiki.
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Post by legion on Dec 10, 2012 19:43:22 GMT
Except... We don't have an out-of-time view. We see what could be interpreted as a stable time loop. And that's still a paradox. It could be resolved by saying there was an "original" reason for the canyon which got replaced, but that does not mean such is the best explanation. It's an explanation that just requires taking Coyote's word at face value (the word of a nearly omnipotent being many times older than recorded human history, with knowledge vastly beyond human scope [or, on a more metalogical level, assuming that the writer means what he says, and if Tom has Coyote say that without hinting at contradictory evidence, then Coyote word is true because Tom implied it is]); your explanation requires the additional speculation of an entirely new external force for which there is absolutely no evidence. If simpler is better, then no, your explanation is not better, since it needs an aditional unknown factor, and does not explain anything that the time feedback loop explanation doesn't adress. [feedback is a very good analogy by the way: how can a sound amplify itself? It turns that with the assistance of sound technology, it can; a sound is emited, recorded, played, simultaneously, but the playing of the sound creates additional vibrations in the sound source, which now plays a louder sound, which is recorded, played, and then... until the the electric device is saturated and unable to record or emit a louder sound... could the ether get to the point of saturation? hmmmmm]
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Post by GK Sierra on Dec 10, 2012 20:12:33 GMT
Except... We don't have an out-of-time view. We see what could be interpreted as a stable time loop. And that's still a paradox. It could be resolved by saying there was an "original" reason for the canyon which got replaced, but that does not mean such is the best explanation. It's an explanation that just requires taking Coyote's word at face value (the word of a nearly omnipotent being many times older than recorded human history, with knowledge vastly beyond human scope [or, on a more metalogical level, assuming that the writer means what he says, and if Tom has Coyote say that without hinting at contradictory evidence, then Coyote word is true because Tom implied it is]); your explanation requires the additional speculation of an entirely new external force for which there is absolutely no evidence. If simpler is better, then no, your explanation is not better, since it needs an aditional unknown factor, and does not explain anything that the time feedback loop explanation doesn't adress. [feedback is a very good analogy by the way: how can a sound amplify itself? It turns that with the assistance of sound technology, it can; a sound is emited, recorded, played, simultaneously, but the playing of the sound creates additional vibrations in the sound source, which now plays a louder sound, which is recorded, played, and then... until the the electric device is saturated and unable to record or emit a louder sound... could the ether get to the point of saturation? hmmmmm] I would be very cautious of anything that requires us to take Coyote at his word. He's a very genre-savvy character. ;D
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Post by Nnelg on Dec 11, 2012 1:29:29 GMT
It's an explanation that just requires taking Coyote's word at face value Which is something I am not prepared to do. (By the way, there's a reason I've avoided bringing meta into the argument...) your explanation requires the additional speculation of an entirely new external force for which there is absolutely no evidence. Something had to create Coyote et al. My "External Force" is merely a catch-all term for anything other than human intellect/consciousness. And as for evidence, both explanations share the same body thereof. (As in, everything that we have.) The only choice is which explanation fits the evidence better. If simpler is better, then no, your explanation is not better, since it needs an aditional unknown factor, and does not explain anything that the time feedback loop explanation doesn't adress. The position I am currently holding is not a theory per se, but more of a "lack-of-a-theory". It's the default state of "we're not sure". We know there is some additional factor involved, but not what that is. Any new theory (including yours) merely supplies an explanation for what that additional factor might be (yours supplied "retroactive creation replacing 'original' causes"). Before such theories can be accepted, they must prove that the explanation they provide fits the data better than any other hypothetically possible explanation. So, if we start by assuming an unspecified external force (other than human consciousness) created Coyote and all other etheric beings, then until you can prove your theory explains the data better than that, we cannot accept it. (It isn't disproven, there just isn't enough data to prove it yet.) feedback is a very good analogy by the way Having recently come from a in-depth discussion on another forum that was specifically about temporal loops et cetera, I can say that I understand what you're trying to say (possibly better than you do) and have no qualms with the concept. You only have to prove that this sort of process is the best explanation for the data. I would be very cautious of anything that requires us to take Coyote at his word. He's a very genre-savvy character. ;D Right, this is why I have decided not to take Coyote's word as significant evidence; there are simply too many reasons why he might be wrong/oversimplifying to the extreme/deliberately misleading others/just trolling around.
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Post by legion on Dec 11, 2012 9:53:24 GMT
Reasons are not evidence. Until I have evidence that Coyote is deliberatedly or unwittingly saying false things, I see no reason to reject a priori what he says.
Coyote may be wrong, there may be another explanation, but assuming he has to be wrong when really, his explanation is perfectly consistent and the only one we have in comic is kind of assuming presumption of guiltiness.
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Post by AluK on Dec 11, 2012 13:26:04 GMT
I have a big problem with retroactive causation and it's that it doesn't even reconcile with itself. If all the myths about the creation of the universe are made true by retroactive causation, how do you reconcile all of them?
By the way, I don't know if Tom is into Tabletop RPGs, if he ever played them or something, but I have a hunch he'd love Mage: The Ascension.
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Post by Nnelg on Dec 12, 2012 4:30:43 GMT
Reasons are not evidence. Until I have evidence that Coyote is deliberatedly or unwittingly saying false things, I see no reason to reject a priori what he says. He's Coyote. If that wasn't reason enough to distrust him, here's two motivations he'd have to deceive/mislead: first, to infuriate Ysengrin, driving him closer to insanity; second, to sway Annie's opinions of the court. The former it should be clear by now is an active goal of his, and the second was suggested by Jones (a rather more trustworthy character). Regardless, I'm not saying we should completely disregard what he said. Just require some form of corroboration before his words can be taken as trustworthy evidence. Coyote may be wrong, there may be another explanation, but assuming he has to be wrong when really, his explanation is perfectly consistent and the only one we have in comic is kind of assuming presumption of guiltiness. Well, that's how Science works: you assume a theory is wrong and try to disprove it in any way possible. If at the end it's still standing strong above all other theories, then you can say with confidence that it's (probably) correct.
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