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Post by imaginaryfriend on Apr 6, 2022 7:05:20 GMT
That'd be basically giving up on an Omega set entirely, but whatever.
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Post by speedwell on Apr 6, 2022 7:16:39 GMT
Oh, Jerrek, sweetie, you were almost there.
He understood that there were multiple levels on which you could understand the cosmos - the smaller picture as well as the larger picture, the levels at which different rules apply, both small and large. On the quantum level, sure, there is no free will, and that's a fact. On the universe level, there is no free will because on that scale there is nothing we can think of as a person exercising what we think of as free will and no room to even have free will in. But on the level of human-scale functioning, where you can't put your hand through a table even though it is mostly empty space and where systems combine to make other systems in both predictable and unpredictable ways, where no person or people literally comprehend every single quantum interaction and every interaction of every system, free will is not only existent but inevitable. Time doesn't exist either. We're in a dead system. But we're alive within it.
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Post by justcurious on Apr 6, 2022 7:23:50 GMT
I think we now are beginning to know what Ysengrin found so appalling about what the Court intended to do.
But as many have pointed out quantum uncertainty doomed the Court's plan even without the ether. It will be interesting to see whether this is brought up.
It has been suggested that the ether may be some sort of life force. But there is no reason to believe that a life force exists or that life is an entity at all rather than a process. Now consciousness is another matter. We do not know whether our current understanding of physics can explain it.
So within the universe of this story would going somewhere without the ether lead to the end of life or consciousness? Does the Court know?
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Post by blahzor on Apr 6, 2022 7:24:39 GMT
Louperrk: The more I talk then more you can tell I'm not a NP right?
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Post by madjack on Apr 6, 2022 7:27:25 GMT
Louperrk: The more I talk then more you can tell I'm not a NP right? His mask is slipping alright. If Annie didn't know before, she's probably (hopefully) suspecting something's up now. |
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Post by rafk on Apr 6, 2022 7:44:24 GMT
I love this chapter. GC has been on the upswing since leaving behind the Understanding Tony stuff and heading out to the forest with Aata, and this is the kind of mytharc advancement I can get behind.
IMO the secret of Omega is they are using the ether to overcome the quantum uncertainty of our world's science and the other gaps that wouldn't even let our world's science start tackling such a project with a dozen supercomputers put together. And with Coyote gone, the ether is no longer behaving precisely the way they observed and built around.
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Post by stef1987 on Apr 6, 2022 8:15:01 GMT
Oh, Jerrek, sweetie, you were almost there. He understood that there were multiple levels on which you could understand the cosmos - the smaller picture as well as the larger picture, the levels at which different rules apply, both small and large. On the quantum level, sure, there is no free will, and that's a fact. On the universe level, there is no free will because on that scale there is nothing we can think of as a person exercising what we think of as free will and no room to even have free will in. But on the level of human-scale functioning, where you can't put your hand through a table even though it is mostly empty space and where systems combine to make other systems in both predictable and unpredictable ways, where no person or people literally comprehend every single quantum interaction and every interaction of every system, free will is not only existent but inevitable. Time doesn't exist either. We're in a dead system. But we're alive within it. What? Nah |
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Post by arf on Apr 6, 2022 8:31:30 GMT
IMO the secret of Omega is they are using the ether to overcome the quantum uncertainty of our world's science and the other gaps that wouldn't even let our world's science start tackling such a project with a dozen supercomputers put together. And with Coyote gone, the ether is no longer behaving precisely the way they observed and built around. What if 'quantum uncertainty' *was* the 'ether'? Coyote being the master juggler who can borrow and replace to the necessary degrees. Young Jerrek shows an understanding of this stuff way beyond the average pipes maintenance bot (although he would have had some spare time) |
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Post by rafk on Apr 6, 2022 8:59:45 GMT
Anyway I think we are starting to get at the core of the mythos here.
I think the core of Omega will depend on Coyote and/or the forest (and the way Coyote regulated the forest that Loup was not able to replicate) in a way the Court never grasped. Did not the wood, like the Court, also grow from the seed bismuth? It's a two halves of the same coin thing I think.
The Court has quite possibly asked Omega to predict them a path to slay Coyote or supplant Coyote, which they have followed faithfully over the past couple of generations at least, and Coyote has been able to ensure that prophecy is fulfilled in the way worst for the Court while being unable to avoid it completely (perhaps because in a certain way it has already been observed by Omega)
The Court plans to leave because they no longer have the security blanket of accurate Omega predictions to know they won't get killed or to know how to take control of the full power of the seed bismuth now that the supplant Coyote plan has failed, Aata's quest having been the final roll of the dice to get back on track.
I think this is heading towards ultimately cooperation between Annie and Kat to harness the power of the seed benevolently and to the benefit of forest, human, etheric creature and robot alike in a way that neither Coyote nor the Court could ever manage on their own with only half the necessary insight and knowledge, in spite of the Court's plan for solo domination (already failing) and Coyote's plan likewise (which hasn't failed yet and isn't definitely the plan I'm suggesting, but I anticipate that IS Coyote's real goal and it will ultimately fail too).
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Post by flowsthead on Apr 6, 2022 9:06:08 GMT
I never know how seriously to take science in a world where magic exists. This was cool to read, but like, the great great great...grand daughter of fire is talking to a magic wolf-yote about atoms.
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Post by theonethatgotaway on Apr 6, 2022 9:44:50 GMT
I never know how seriously to take science in a world where magic exists. This was cool to read, but like, the great great great...grand daughter of fire is talking to a magic wolf-yote about atoms. What's that quote again, all sufficiently advanced technology is perceived as magic? Or something to that effect. And as already talked about by Annie, and Kat, and big-Z, and others: magic and science can exist right next to each other in this world, but one doesn't exclude the other and they can't necessarily explain one another. But yes: wolf that can stop time and "split" people just scoffed at the idea of atoms. |
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Post by arf on Apr 6, 2022 9:59:02 GMT
That is Clarke's Third Law. The corollary to which is that all magic that is sufficiently well defined is indistinguishable from science.
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Post by ohthatone on Apr 6, 2022 11:30:15 GMT
Gotta give props to Loup for being able to hold the crazy in all this time and have an actual insightful conversation.
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Post by speedwell on Apr 6, 2022 11:35:56 GMT
Oh, Jerrek, sweetie, you were almost there. He understood that there were multiple levels on which you could understand the cosmos - the smaller picture as well as the larger picture, the levels at which different rules apply, both small and large. On the quantum level, sure, there is no free will, and that's a fact. On the universe level, there is no free will because on that scale there is nothing we can think of as a person exercising what we think of as free will and no room to even have free will in. But on the level of human-scale functioning, where you can't put your hand through a table even though it is mostly empty space and where systems combine to make other systems in both predictable and unpredictable ways, where no person or people literally comprehend every single quantum interaction and every interaction of every system, free will is not only existent but inevitable. Time doesn't exist either. We're in a dead system. But we're alive within it. What? Nah Did you even read it closely enough to have a reason for your dismissal? |
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fanofts
Junior Member
Watching gunnerkrigg.fandom.com
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Post by fanofts on Apr 6, 2022 11:42:08 GMT
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Post by speedwell on Apr 6, 2022 11:47:12 GMT
IMO the secret of Omega is they are using the ether to overcome the quantum uncertainty of our world's science and the other gaps that wouldn't even let our world's science start tackling such a project with a dozen supercomputers put together. And with Coyote gone, the ether is no longer behaving precisely the way they observed and built around. What if 'quantum uncertainty' *was* the 'ether'? Coyote being the master juggler who can borrow and replace to the necessary degrees. Young Jerrek shows an understanding of this stuff way beyond the average pipes maintenance bot (although he would have had some spare time) Heh, I knew someone was going to take the "quantum woo" bait. Quantum theory is not magic. Magic is loads more explainable and predictable than quantum theory. If magic were a scientifically proven thing, by the way, it would work within quantum theory insofar as it worked within the natural world (the complex of postulated universe sometimes referred to as the cosmos). Anything that "transcends the natural world" - simply doesn't exist. It is forever outside our frame of reference or any other frame of reference that can be shown to exist. Since Coyote works within and upon the natural world, the only way he can manipulate the universe at quantum level is to be uncountably many orders of magnitude more powerful than we have seen him be capable of. And Loup? Can't even manage himself within the human-level frame of reference. This is independent of whether we think of the Gunnerkrigg milieu as a pocket universe or as a place existing in a regular universe (like the Land of Oz and its environs - and this is canon in the Oz universe - is a place on Earth unreachable from the rest of Earth except by magic). Supposing that the Gunnerkrigg milieu is somehow not dependent on a quantum frame of reference somewhere is equivalent to defining a square as something circular. |
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Post by madjack on Apr 6, 2022 11:49:10 GMT
It would be absolutely hilarious if GC and K6BD end up tackling the same problem, even from different angles. |
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Post by Per on Apr 6, 2022 12:20:46 GMT
Again, it's not lack of determinism or missing initial conditions that doom a prediction machine. What it needs to "work" is being fictional and the beneficiary of generous handwaving. As hinted by Loup a few pages ago, the prospects of prediction improve radically with etheric shenanigans.
Also, determinism is not incompatible with free will for a compatibilist, though I guess Coyote/Loup would know if anyone if free will is a special thing in this universe.
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Post by Gemminie on Apr 6, 2022 14:07:06 GMT
OK I missed one again, but anyway ...
Previously, Jerrek/Loup says the Ether, which he's "heard of," adds an element of unpredictability to the Omega Device's deterministic system. And Annie tells us that the expeditions her dad used to go on, where he'd go somewhere and observe occurrences at a particular place and time, were used to check the Omega Device's predictions. She says that "around" when she first came to the Court, Omega said there would be the need for a medium. So Omega at least partially works, but recently it's been getting more inaccurate. I speculate that this could be because of what Coyote did, merging with Ysengrin to create Loup, causing huge ripples in the Ether.
But anyway, this time, Annie's talking about the Court's current plan – to start anew without the Ether, in hopes of making the system more deterministic. Jerrek/Loup is clearly upset about this and pulls the hair tie out of his hair as he replies that such a system would allow for no free will. Perhaps he's thinking about why Coyote chose not to know everything, because he says that to know everything is to know a dead system. And as he's calling it absurd, we see Annie looking at him in astonishment. And well may she – why would a New Person get so upset about all of this? This wouldn't really affect him, as he wouldn't be going with the Court to its new Ether-free zone. Is Annie suspecting that something's off about Jerrek?
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Post by atteSmythe on Apr 6, 2022 14:40:04 GMT
I never know how seriously to take science in a world where magic exists. This was cool to read, but like, the great great great...grand daughter of fire is talking to a magic wolf-yote about atoms. My favorite systems treat magic as equivalent to and similar to physics. Physics has inviolable rules. Magic also has inviolable rules, but those rules shift and change over time. They change usually in response to societal shifts, human belief, etc., things not normally accounted for by physics. And the drift itself is unpredictable. So you could write down everything there is to know about magic in the present day, and it would be as accurate as a physics text. But in ten or fifty or a hundred years, it would be nigh useless. |
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Post by drmemory on Apr 6, 2022 14:42:16 GMT
Ok, Jerrek is behaving out of character for an NP. I predict the next thing will be Annie asking Kat about this - like "was that normal NP behavior?". I don't think she'll just jump to it being Loup because he isn't acting much like an angry dog-god either. Really, being Annie, she might just ask Jerrek directly how he knows this stuff.
Hopefully he won't panic and attack!
The more interesting thing here, IMHO, is that he's just explained to himself why Coyote refuses to use his omniscience. It's darned boring to know everything that's going to happen and takes away all your fun! He's learning quite a lot, tapping into Coyote's knowledge and trying to use it to teach someone else. That's pretty much how teaching works actually - if you try to explain stuff you don't fully understand, it very often helps you understand it. Programmers do this too - I can't tell you how many times I've tried to explain a subtle problem, only to hear the solution come out of my own mouth. Anyway, yes he is behaving oddly, and it will probably make Annie suspicious. This may or may not lead her to guess what's really going on with Jerrek. Oh, and now we know WHY the court doesn't want any non-humans around - so they can set up their little petri dish of humans, which they will be fully control. As predicted.  |
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Post by mordekai on Apr 6, 2022 15:35:40 GMT
The way I see it, the problem is, the Omega Device would take into account your reaction to its predictions when calculating its predictions, so, since it knows how you will react to its predictions, it will tell you what you will do, and you WILL do exactly that... So it will feel like you are following a script rather than really living...
In the real world our decisions may be either determined by physics, from a Deterministic point of view (by the chemical reactions in our neurons reacting to the stimuli from our environment), or, if we accept the existance of an element of randomness and indetermination in our universe, by said chemical reactions altered to some degree by chance... But we aren't aware of that, so we feel like we have free will...
The Omega Device would rip the beautiful mask of free will and show us as the helpless puppets we are...
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Post by bicarbonat on Apr 6, 2022 15:36:57 GMT
Did you even read it closely enough to have a reason for your dismissal? Hopefully that "nah" was a BSOD response. In other news, kayfabe found killed and dead by Lou-rek and whatever discount panto he thinks he's doing. That is not how children speak, sir! |
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Post by ctso74 on Apr 6, 2022 15:45:16 GMT
He's not wrong, but not wholly right.
Entropy will always stamp out complexity in a closed system, but only over time. A closed system can still be as complicated and chaotic, as swirls in your coffee and cream.
But that's all philosophical. I don't think the Court cares about any of that. It sounds, like they're using just enough Ether to short-circuit determinism, in a localized bubble. If so, it'll be interesting to see how they go about it, and the "results".
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Post by Gemini Jim on Apr 6, 2022 15:51:14 GMT
Louperrk: The more I talk then more you can tell I'm not a NP right? His mask is slipping alright. If Annie didn't know before, she's probably (hopefully) suspecting something's up now. Yeah, he's literally letting his hair down. All the better to look like a wild animal. And I could be wrong, but she's giving him the Spock raised eyebrow in the last panel. She's either fascinated by or suspicious of what he's saying there. |
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Post by flowsthead on Apr 6, 2022 16:37:03 GMT
I never know how seriously to take science in a world where magic exists. This was cool to read, but like, the great great great...grand daughter of fire is talking to a magic wolf-yote about atoms. What's that quote again, all sufficiently advanced technology is perceived as magic? Or something to that effect. And as already talked about by Annie, and Kat, and big-Z, and others: magic and science can exist right next to each other in this world, but one doesn't exclude the other and they can't necessarily explain one another. But yes: wolf that can stop time and "split" people just scoffed at the idea of atoms. I think that's the problem though, I don't agree that one doesn't exclude the other. Science can still exist in a world of magic among those that cannot do magic, but the fact that Coyote can make Annie touch the moon and leave her fingerprint there is just so far removed from science that it makes science pointless. Kat's reactions at the beginning of the comic are the only ones that make sense from a science perspective. Conservation of mass/energy doesn't seem to apply to Gunnerkrigg as Annie can just create energy, heat, without using any kind of fuel source. |
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Post by Corvo on Apr 6, 2022 17:18:34 GMT
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Post by davidm on Apr 6, 2022 18:40:45 GMT
The court would likely need "ether"/magic to power the machine, they were harvesting it from water, they wanted coyotes, they look for other source...
The point of such a machine is probably not just to see the future but to choose the future by using predictions change actions. Magic might also fudge random events so that what is predicted is what happens.
Without some sort of magic/outside system bigger than what is modelled, or some manipulation of the system to make it follow the desired path, there would be uncertainty.
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One option is Gunnerkrigg court is like "The Matrix" movies, a simulated world, that would allow all the magic including alternative realities, and foretelling of future.
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Post by davidm on Apr 6, 2022 18:49:25 GMT
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Post by Per on Apr 6, 2022 20:04:38 GMT
The way I see it, the problem is, the Omega Device would take into account your reaction to its predictions when calculating its predictions, so, since it knows how you will react to its predictions, ... it needs an infinite iteration of predictions including previous output as input and will never make an actual prediction. it will tell you what you will do, and you WILL do exactly that... Why? It's not a making people do things machine. (Also see: negation machine.) In the real world our decisions may be either determined by physics, from a Deterministic point of view (by the chemical reactions in our neurons reacting to the stimuli from our environment), or, if we accept the existance of an element of randomness and indetermination in our universe, by said chemical reactions altered to some degree by chance... But we aren't aware of that, so we feel like we have free will... The Omega Device would rip the beautiful mask of free will and show us as the helpless puppets we are... Not if you're a compatibilist! But really I find being a puppet to causality no more distressing than being a puppet to a causality/randomness combo. |
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