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Post by Isildur on Mar 29, 2022 9:30:01 GMT
Heisenberg must be rolling over in his grave! "Must"? Are you certain?  |
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Post by arf on Mar 29, 2022 9:46:07 GMT
The 'MacGuffin in a suitcase' remark has got me thinking about the Heisenberg Experiment.
(I don't recall seeing any cats in the Court... oh, wait!)
As for computers in other timelines... the Eschaton says 'no'.
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Post by pyradonis on Mar 29, 2022 11:36:29 GMT
Heisenberg must be rolling over in his grave! "Must"? Are you certain?  Yes, but they don't know where the grave is.
Nice to see Loup dipping his paws into programming. Next he'll be talking about base classes and inheritance and design patterns. I can already picture him turning into wolf form angrily yelling at the computer and threatening to rip it apart if it won't make his genius program work properly, then... "Oh, right. I wrote = instead of == in the if clause."
...And nobody would notice anything unusual because this is just standard behavior among programmers.
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Post by DonDueed on Mar 29, 2022 18:06:35 GMT
The 'MacGuffin in a suitcase' remark has got me thinking about the Heisenberg Experiment. (I don't recall seeing any cats in the Court... oh, wait!) You're thinking of Schoedinger, I believe. |
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Post by mturtle7 on Mar 29, 2022 22:02:47 GMT
Now I'm curious what it means, in Doylist and Watsonian terms, that when the encounter DID happened, it needed to be with Coyote's Loup version (let's face it, Coyote is in control and is the supreme puppet master of the whole story).
I think that "in control" and "puppet master" are rather misleading terms to apply to Coyote, and that's going to be pretty important as we continue to follow this plot arc. He's a supreme mastermind and a manipulator, sure, but not in the sense that he's, like, carefully watching & controlling your every move in accordance with a single "master plan" - he's way too chaotic for that ( much like his own Forest Branchs)! Throughout the comic, I think we've gotten a pretty distinct impression that Coyote is the sort of "mastermind" who operates by setting up some very important pieces, occasionally giving them a nudge in the right direction, and then simply waiting for them to create spontaneous opportunities for him to take advantage of. The seeds, the Tic-toc, the Tooth, Annie, Ysengrin, the lake water & goose bone, Loup...I don't think he actually knew exactly what use any of these people/things would end up having in his plans when he started messing with them (I mean hell, in the case of the lake water and goose bone, he couldn't even remember what they were, rather by necessity), he just sort of pushed them in a direction that seemed like it would be to produce good opportunities which would be advantageous to his goals, and then jumped on those opportunities when the time came. It's the sort of thing where for every scheme that works, there were probably at least a half-dozen others that never came to fruition (e.g. the whole Renard fiasco), but it doesn't matter because he hardly invested any effort in each one. He's not actually in control all the time, he's just always winning in some way...
...and I think, more than anything else, that's exactly what sets him apart from poor Loup. Thanks to the influence of Ysengrin's regimented, power-obsessed mind, Loup is always trying to control the the things and people around him, and more often than not failing miserably. Perhaps most pathetically, he's actually trying to follow Coyote's 'plan' like a set of instructions - beginning with " go and observe the Court" - just to get back some semblance of control. But even now, I don't think Coyote has any control to offer him - after all, he already set up all the pieces, now he just wants Loup to go see what kind of interesting story results from them, and thus gain the same level of understanding that Coyote always had, about himself...whatever that is. |
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Post by drmemory on Mar 30, 2022 1:54:46 GMT
Heisenberg must be rolling over in his grave! "Must"? Are you certain? Well, no. I'm not even certain he's in there I guess. His body, that is. One would assume so? |
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Post by warrl on Mar 30, 2022 4:11:11 GMT
I think that "in control" and "puppet master" are rather misleading terms to apply to Coyote, and that's going to be pretty important as we continue to follow this plot arc. He's a supreme mastermind and a manipulator, sure, but not in the sense that he's, like, carefully watching & controlling your every move in accordance with a single "master plan" - he's way too chaotic for that (much like his own Forest Branchs)! Throughout the comic, I think we've gotten a pretty distinct impression that Coyote is the sort of "mastermind" who operates by setting up some very important pieces, occasionally giving them a nudge in the right direction, and then simply waiting for them to create spontaneous opportunities for him to take advantage of. I think perhaps he's even less controlling than that. In more than a few mythologies, the big problem of being immortal is BOREDOM. Eventually everything becomes so predictable, you've seen it all before, you know people's reactions before they even get the stimulus they're reacting to... Heck, in the El Goonish Shive universe, the Immortals have gotten into the habit of mind-wiping themselves about every 200 years... Coyote sets things up hoping they WON'T go as he expects. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 30, 2022 7:25:38 GMT
I think both things can be true. Coyote sets things up, manipulates people to achieve particular ends, and is delighted if he succeeds so long as he isn't bored by the process or result. He revels in how clever and smart he is. If his plans go awry he doesn't care if he looks like a fool or accomplishes nothing so long as it isn't boring. I think that's particularly the case when he has a major role in whatever story is playing out and gets lots of attention. It probably doesn't happen often but I suspect there have been times where he succeeded in his original aim but things played out in a boring way; in those cases I expect he took out his frustration and annoyance on whoever spoiled his fun, or failing that, whoever was handy.
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Post by hp on Mar 30, 2022 20:59:06 GMT
I say that because it's mathematically proven that you can map an infinitely large space to a finite one; More or less like making a JPG of a universe?
Maybe the Court is wasting resources on overkill and needs some humanities/ historical materialism into their science. Why would they need to compute the whole universe at once? Why do they want to have that ability?
They could approach "predicting the future" with a reasonable degree of accuracy for any pragmatic objective they might have in a much more feasible way, taking into account only non-negligible material forces shaping events, like psychological tendencies, climatic patterns, natural resources usage, geopolitical dynamics etc. People can broadly predict social dynamics like, say, competition between states leading to conflict, contradictions within a mode of production leading to social unrest, etc, even without using computers... They just need a good notion of where to look. Imagine if they were able to adequately teach computers to do that in a more comprehensive, fast and efficient way (with some system in place to overcome blind spots and social biases from those doing the programming).
Something like Asimov's psycho-history?
(edit:)
I think that "in control" and "puppet master" are rather misleading terms to apply to Coyote, and that's going to be pretty important as we continue to follow this plot arc. He's a supreme mastermind and a manipulator, sure, but not in the sense that he's, like, carefully watching & controlling your every move in accordance with a single "master plan" - he's way too chaotic for that ( much like his own Forest Branchs)! Throughout the comic, I think we've gotten a pretty distinct impression that Coyote is the sort of "mastermind" who operates by setting up some very important pieces, occasionally giving them a nudge in the right direction, and then simply waiting for them to create spontaneous opportunities for him to take advantage of. The seeds, the Tic-toc, the Tooth, Annie, Ysengrin, the lake water & goose bone, Loup...I don't think he actually knew exactly what use any of these people/things would end up having in his plans when he started messing with them (I mean hell, in the case of the lake water and goose bone, he couldn't even remember what they were, rather by necessity), he just sort of pushed them in a direction that seemed like it would be to produce good opportunities which would be advantageous to his goals, and then jumped on those opportunities when the time came. It's the sort of thing where for every scheme that works, there were probably at least a half-dozen others that never came to fruition (e.g. the whole Renard fiasco), but it doesn't matter because he hardly invested any effort in each one. He's not actually in control all the time, he's just always winning in some way... I dunno, Loup just confirmed (a couple pages ago) Coyote can be omniscient on demand. His only blind spots are those he wants to keep or impose on himself.
He's also hinted to be able to predict and plan far ahead in the way he guided Y towards instability and betraying him. Even Coyote's projection emanating from his memories seem to be running circles around Loup. Things like inserting the seeds on GK, giving Annie the Tooth, removing specific memories from himself and Ysemgrim, etc don't look like the acts of a "gardener" planting everything away and seeing what grows, but rather like purposeful decisions from a Chess Master intending to set up specific outcomes. Everything he does looks like chekov guns he fully knows when are going to shoot lmao
Of course, as a trickster he does everything chaotically and for the lulz, but he pretty much seems to be moving the story plot in a very concious (?) way
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Post by Nnelg on Apr 20, 2022 13:35:31 GMT
I say that because it's mathematically proven that you can map an infinitely large space to a finite one; More or less like making a JPG of a universe? No. I mean like infinitely subdividing and rearranging space itself. Like finding room for an infinite number of people in an infinite hotel with no vacancy. |
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Post by warrl on Apr 20, 2022 17:32:21 GMT
I mean like infinitely subdividing and rearranging space itself. Like finding room for an infinite number of people in an infinite hotel with no vacancy. gets absolutely LOUSY reviews - every few minutes, all night, they are waking you up and making you move to another room. |
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