Erfworld Thread XI: Finally, it's HAMMER-TIME!

[halfeye]

That's kinda funny since most of the text update is the towers ranting about how bad words are for describing things compared to pretty signs.

Which shows how stupid the towers are since the reason that actual contracts are mostly written with words and not pretty signs is precisely because when you get enough words you leave no room for ambiguity, while pretty signs, well, will always leave plenty of room for that.

I think the signs are supposed to be platonic essences, which would mean that they were the things they said they were, in a much deeper way than real things are real, if platonic essences existed, which it's pretty certain they don't.

[Aquillion]

Oh wow! A new mechanical issue and a total random coincidence that changes the direction of the plot! Definitely an exciting development. I hope another totally random coincidence involving new, previously undisclosed mechanics happens in the next few pages to completely reverse this one! Seeing endless arguments about magical contract law that never go anywhere and are mostly rendered moot by random coincidences or previously-undisclosed mechanics is totally what I wanted to see out of a comic.

[deuterio12]

I think the signs are supposed to be platonic essences, which would mean that they were the things they said they were, in a much deeper way than real things are real, if platonic essences existed, which it's pretty certain they don't.

Indeed, since not only Tee Vee was negotiating in bad faith knowing that Benjamin was cooking something up, Charlie's Tower blatantly promised something it could not deliver (remove Caesar's collar).

Also deeply ironic considering that this used to be a comic and is now a poorly written novel with thousands of words that convey exactly nothing.

Oh wow! A new mechanical issue and a total random coincidence that changes the direction of the plot! Definitely an exciting development. I hope another totally random coincidence involving new, previously undisclosed mechanics happens in the next few pages to completely reverse this one! Seeing endless arguments about magical contract law that never go anywhere and are mostly rendered moot by random coincidences or previously-undisclosed mechanics is totally what I wanted to see out of a comic.

True, but sadly there's quite a bit of people that seem perfectly fine with the current state of affairs, trying to find logic where there's none, and they're throwing money at the author while mining online currency, so I can't really blame him for abandoning artistic integrity and just keep cashing in the cheap bucks.

No wonder Benjamin is basically the new main protagonist, erfworld's out just to keep the dough rolling in with minimum effort now.

[DigoDragon]

The long and short of it is:

Spoiler: TLDR

Show

The two temples accuse each other of cheating, because Ben's plan appears to have worked... but also Shirley couldn't immediately revert the collar to a pendant on her own anyway because it was first transformed through an Arkendish link.

The body of the text is mostly Huehue grumbling about how words--even his own words and metaphors--don't adequately envelop Signs, and blaming that for the contract issues.

I recall something about bed nails and how I'm wondering if I am starting to miss the old talk about strings or if this is just indigestion from that sandwich I had for dinner.

I would of felt happy for Ben and his plan if the update was a lot less wordy.

[Rockphed]

I still haven't read the update. But, I think the problem is that somebody was worried about the financing of a job they were unable to be the finishing of.

[Sniccups]

Also deeply ironic considering that this used to be a comic and is now a poorly written novel with thousands of words that convey exactly nothing.

Could someone explain to me what is meant by this? I am notoriously bad at noticing flaws in stories, to the point where I genuinely liked the Star Wars prequels and can’t figure out exactly why they’re so hated.

[deuterio12]

Could someone explain to me what is meant by this? I am notoriously bad at noticing flaws in stories, to the point where I genuinely liked the Star Wars prequels and can’t figure out exactly why they’re so hated.

Basically most of recent updates have been a character repeating what other character already said just with different words, along plenty of pseudo-philosophy that doesn't really lead anywhere like stringstrsingsSTRINGSssstttrriiinngGgGGgggsSS and more recently tower sign talk that was supposed to be super flawless and failed miserably for both sides simultaneously. Bonus points for trying to describe in words that it can't be described in words.

[Sniccups]

Basically most of recent updates have been a character repeating what other character already said just with different words, along plenty of pseudo-philosophy that doesn't really lead anywhere like stringstrsingsSTRINGSssstttrriiinngGgGGgggsSS and more recently tower sign talk that was supposed to be super flawless and failed miserably for both sides simultaneously. Bonus points for trying to describe in words that it can't be described in words.

I think I get it. That’ll all change, though, once Sizemore gets through the portal.

Edit: Also, I liked what Jed did to bring Parson back. After all, the spell was never supposed to “send him home” - it was Weirdomancy, to break the summoning entirely.

[keybounce]

So, what is the likely hood that, just as book three ended and book 4 began at the end of the first charlie / hamster battle in portal park, that book 4 ends and book 5 begins with the death of big think and the awakening of the many many towers?

Rob's pacing has suffered greatly. Even the multibook castle arc of Girl Genius was better than this.

[Rockphed]

Rob's pacing has suffered greatly. Even the multibook castle arc of Girl Genius was better than this.

The Castle arc at least had punch lines on a regular basis.

[Anteros]

I think I get it. That’ll all change, though, once Sizemore gets through the portal.

Edit: Also, I liked what Jed did to bring Parson back. After all, the spell was never supposed to “send him home” - it was Weirdomancy, to break the summoning entirely.

Ha, we've been saying "things will pick up once <character> gets through the portal!" for about a decade now.

[Sniccups]

Ha, we've been saying "things will pick up once <character> gets through the portal!" for about a decade now.

Sorry, I've only been reading since July. Maybe that's why I haven't noticed the pacing.

[Mando Knight]

The Castle arc at least had punch lines on a regular basis.

Also a reliable (not perfect, but reliable) MWF update schedule.

[tomaO2]

Could someone explain to me what is meant by this? I am notoriously bad at noticing flaws in stories, to the point where I genuinely liked the Star Wars prequels and can’t figure out exactly why they’re so hated.

Also, the prequels weren't that bad. My mother and I both watched them at the theater, and enjoyed all three. That said, I am aware of the criticism, and fair points are made against it.

The Last Jedi though...

You could say that the main problem with both is that they take the main character, Luke Skywalker and Parson, and sideline them in their efforts to pump up a bunch of other people.

I didn't come to read about the great minds, super puppets, or talking cities, I came to read about a wargamer stuck in a real life wargame, and I haven't gotten that since the end of book 2. Likewise, I wanted to see Luke Skywalker make a triumphant return after all these years, and I got a bitter old man that accomplished nothing of note before getting killed off.

It's also not a good idea to simply toss aside established rules for the universe, like is constantly happening with these stupid links, and contract cheats that come out of nowhere, or with hyperspace ramming being a thing that no one in the history of ever had come up with before Admiral Purple Hair tried it.

Author/director, know your audience.

I'm looking forward to the Ivan Ortega Last Jedi re-edit that is going make Luke a hero again. No tossing the lightsaber behind his back, no trying to kill someone in their sleep, no dismissing the Jedi as having nothing but a legacy of failure, and there is even going to be an actual light saber battle between Luke and Kylo. No idea how he's going to do that, but I'm eager to see it.

[Yana]

Wait, when did Big Think die? How many months of glacial pacing ago was that?

[Mando Knight]

Wait, when did Big Think die? How many months of glacial pacing ago was that?

The temple was Charlie'd about 18 and a half months ago (Mar 10, 2017), and then the Big Think's frayed knot exploded just shy of 4 months ago (June 1, 2018).

[Lethologica]

Spoiler: ST stuff

Show

Likewise, I wanted to see Luke Skywalker make a triumphant return after all these years, and I got a bitter old man that accomplished nothing of note before getting killed off.

I gotta say, considering one of the few things TFA managed to establish was how badly Luke failed in the intervening time frame, I'm not sure how your expectations survived to TLJ in the first place.

[tomaO2]

Really? Because I can't recall a single person that looked forward to the Last Jedi that seriously expected the portrayal that we got. It seemed that the common consensus was that The Last Jedi would, in fact, bring back the Luke of the original trilogy. If Failure!Luke was such an obvious way to continue the story, you'd think that more people would have mentioned it when guessing how the story would go. Why did Kylo turn to the dark side? No one thought that it was because Luke tried to murder him in his sleep before stopping himself. That's just not a thing people expected.

Still, the idea that Luke had to be a failure is a common argument I hear, because some people think that this is the only way to logically progress from Episode 7, and that is just a lie.

If you like Last Jedi, then that's fine, but don't pretend that anyone expected it, or that it seriously didn't fracture the fanbase much worse than the prequels ever managed. The story could have gone a number of different ways that didn't make Luke into a shell of his former self, but this was the direction that was chosen.

I'm a personal fan of this fanfic retelling, that is called "The Lost Jedi"
https://youtu.be/9BWlIdbjG60

This story does a much better job of building on what came before, and doesn't just arbitrarily make it that the First Order can conquer the New Republic ten minutes after having Starkiller Base destroyed.

That said, even with some minor changes, like with Ivan's re-cut of the Last Jedi, which should be coming out before the end of the year, it would have been a lot more palatable. Luke doesn't need to throw away his father's lightsaber, that he lost while fighting Vader in, perhaps, the most emotional moment of his life, like it was a piece of trash.

[keybounce]

Am I going to have to stop reading this thread in order to do the Darths and Droids "no idea about the movie" comments?

The prequels:
1. Look at the love story between Anakin and Padme. What does it look like to you, if you just look at the love story?
2. Did we show R2 as being able to fly? Why didn't he ever use that during 4-6? Why give R2 abilities that he never otherwise uses?
3. How much of an idiot ball do all the jedi have upon realizing that someone has commissioned the construction of an army -- the clones -- just in time for the jedi to have the ability to fight a bunch of robots? Did no one think that this was an example of both sides being orchestrated by a third group?
4. For that matter, how many people did R2 meet in the prequels that never knew of him in 4-6?
5. And if this only takes place about 30 years ago, how did Solo manage to say with a straight face that he'd never seen nor heard of anything like the stuff that would have been around when he was a child?


The love story is ... weak at best, and ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ar-jar-theory/ ... quite possibly a realistic idea: Padme was trying to keep a dangerous sociopath under control and failed.

[Lethologica]

Noted, keybounce. My bad.

Spoiler: ST stuff

Show

Really? Because I can't recall a single person that looked forward to the Last Jedi that seriously expected the portrayal that we got. It seemed that the common consensus was that The Last Jedi would, in fact, bring back the Luke of the original trilogy. If Failure!Luke was such an obvious way to continue the story, you'd think that more people would have mentioned it when guessing how the story would go. Why did Kylo turn to the dark side? No one thought that it was because Luke tried to murder him in his sleep before stopping himself. That's just not a thing people expected.

Foul, false binary. I am indeed arguing that expecting OT Luke or a "triumphant return" was careless thinking. That is not the same as arguing that people did or should have expected "the portrayal that we got."

Go back to before the first news about TLJ and you'll still find plenty of articles asking what the heck was up with Luke after his New Jedi Order utterly imploded and he hid himself from the galaxy. Even the most banal "ESB 2.0" predictions had Luke aping Yoda, rather than performing some kind of triumphant heroism in recollection of his OT self (and isn't Yoda, after all, a hermit driven to isolation by his greatest failures?). Then, practically as soon as the name The Last Jedi was announced, there actually were articles suggesting that Luke was the last Jedi who was going to refuse to teach Rey and so on, what with Luke being the only person actually referred to as "the last Jedi" in the movies and all.

That's not to say those articles establish consensus or whatever. The point is simply that people were able to and did notice the already-established ST elements that suggested a triumphant Luke wasn't in the cards. The post-OT Luke that had already been written was someone driven to isolation by failure, someone who had up and left everyone behind after losing his academy and his nephew to the dark side, even to the point where everyone OT Luke cared about could have died and he never showed. That's not precisely the same as TLJ Luke, which I would call someone driven to give up by failure. For example, my personal opinion after TFA was that we would find Luke doing some Wacky Force Sh*t at the first Jedi temple to rediscover some kind of ancient truer path, possibly in connection to whatever the heck Snoke's deal was - that obviously didn't happen. But what did happen, what had already happened, was Luke as a character haunted by failure, not at all on the path to triumph. If your expectations didn't account for that, they never had a chance.

[Xaphan]

I think the signs are supposed to be platonic essences, which would mean that they were the things they said they were, in a much deeper way than real things are real, if platonic essences existed, which it's pretty certain they don't.

This might be somewhat off topic, but since the discussion currently seems to be on Star Wars:

Spoiler: It's not THAT certain that the Forms don't exist

Show

Most philosophers agree that for a statement to be true, something must exist to make it true (the statement 'the king of France is bald' is true iff there is a bald king of France to make it true). The issue comes with abstract statements like '2+2=4' or '3 is a prime number'. Which can only be true if something exists that makes it true. And since maths hopefully remains true even if there aren't any people, that thing has to be outside the human mind.

So there is metaphysical reason to think there exist some kind of non-physical 'things' that make abstract statements true. That's not enough to justify the whole of Plato's 'theory of the forms' thing, but it's close enough that the idea is usually described as 'Mathematical Platonism'.

(There are other abstract objects you can argue for too, but I find the maths argument clearest.)

In any case, I don't think that's the idea - I'm pretty sure the extent of the depth here is that sometimes you think something and then have difficulty communicating it, and wouldn't it be awesome if there was a language that did communicate thoughts and feelings perfectly? And that's what signs are meant to be in this context - a way of communicating thoughts and feelings without the gaps created by the limitations of an actual language.

[halfeye]

Spoiler: It's not THAT certain that the Forms don't exist

Show

Most philosophers agree that for a statement to be true, something must exist to make it true (the statement 'the king of France is bald' is true iff there is a bald king of France to make it true). The issue comes with abstract statements like '2+2=4' or '3 is a prime number'. Which can only be true if something exists that makes it true. And since maths hopefully remains true even if there aren't any people, that thing has to be outside the human mind.

So there is metaphysical reason to think there exist some kind of non-physical 'things' that make abstract statements true. That's not enough to justify the whole of Plato's 'theory of the forms' thing, but it's close enough that the idea is usually described as 'Mathematical Platonism'.

(There are other abstract objects you can argue for too, but I find the maths argument clearest.)

Spoiler

Show

I don't see why the sources for arithmentic need to be unphysical. electrons are countable, and so are black holes and the masses of the black holes, so if the last electron falls into a black hole, there will still be a source for numbers. Other forms are just silly, there are many types of chair, the idea that there is one perfect chair that all the others are imitations of is in my view nonsense. For species it's even more plainly silly than that, there's a perfect horse that all the others imitate? what about zebras? are zebras particularly imperfect horses?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

While I don't mind some healthy sidetracking, there's plenty of Star Wars threads this kind of conversation can be moved to. If we can relate it to Erfworld, sure, but its getting off from that a bit now.

[Razade]

This might be somewhat off topic, but since the discussion currently seems to be on Star Wars:

Spoiler: It's not THAT certain that the Forms don't exist

Show

Most philosophers agree that for a statement to be true, something must exist to make it true (the statement 'the king of France is bald' is true iff there is a bald king of France to make it true). The issue comes with abstract statements like '2+2=4' or '3 is a prime number'. Which can only be true if something exists that makes it true. And since maths hopefully remains true even if there aren't any people, that thing has to be outside the human mind.

So there is metaphysical reason to think there exist some kind of non-physical 'things' that make abstract statements true. That's not enough to justify the whole of Plato's 'theory of the forms' thing, but it's close enough that the idea is usually described as 'Mathematical Platonism'.

(There are other abstract objects you can argue for too, but I find the maths argument clearest.)

In any case, I don't think that's the idea - I'm pretty sure the extent of the depth here is that sometimes you think something and then have difficulty communicating it, and wouldn't it be awesome if there was a language that did communicate thoughts and feelings perfectly? And that's what signs are meant to be in this context - a way of communicating thoughts and feelings without the gaps created by the limitations of an actual language.

Not only do I think "most philosophers" don't agree about anything in particular, there's absolutely no reason to go to metaphysics for math. Numbers aren't abstract. Physicality isn't dependent on humans. The Earth was here before humans and the Universe was too. There were a number of things before we observed it and there'll be a number of things after.

[Xaphan]

Not only do I think "most philosophers" don't agree about anything in particular, there's absolutely no reason to go to metaphysics for math. Numbers aren't abstract. Physicality isn't dependent on humans. The Earth was here before humans and the Universe was too. There were a number of things before we observed it and there'll be a number of things after.

Spoiler

Show

Wellllll. Actually, the correspondence theory of truth kinda requires truthmakers, and the philpapers survey (https://philpapers.org/surveys/) puts correspondence theory at 50.8% of philosophers. That is within the margin of error, but truthmakers are used in other theories too, so it's probably a safe bet that I really do mean 'most'.

Other than that... yes. I agree? Numbers aren't dependent on humans, either, which is why I said they couldn't be the result of the human mind. Abstract objects and imaginary ones are conceptually distinct, and the whole point of the Platonic Forms is that they don't depend on humans.

Spoiler

Show

I don't see why the sources for arithmentic need to be unphysical. electrons are countable, and so are black holes and the masses of the black holes, so if the last electron falls into a black hole, there will still be a source for numbers. Other forms are just silly, there are many types of chair, the idea that there is one perfect chair that all the others are imitations of is in my view nonsense. For species it's even more plainly silly than that, there's a perfect horse that all the others imitate? what about zebras? are zebras particularly imperfect horses?

Spoiler

Show

Well, a few things there. If we're counting electrons, we can prove that two electrons plus another two electrons equals four electrons - but if we're only counting electrons, that doesn't prove that the same is true of protons. And yet, it obviously is. It would be absurd to say that a particular sum worked only when counting in electrons. Which suggests that there is a broader statement about the nature of 'two' and 'four' which requires that the answer to 'two electrons plus two electrons' must be bound to the answer to 'two protons plus two protons'. More generally, there must be general mathematical statements which can be applied to any object, in order that maths not depend on what you choose to count.

Second, let n be a number such that, for every thing that exists that I could count, there exists at most (n-1) of that thing. Since the universe is finite, and since it seems to have minimum limits at the quantum level for things like 'force'*, size' and 'time', that number should be possible (unless I do something *really* odd that lets me count the same thing over and over forever). Since n is a large but finite number, I can make mathematical statements about n, despite it not being a number that can correspond to any physical thing. And even if there were some quirk ofreality that meant that n could not exist, maths doesn't seem to depend on the non-existance of n, so we can simply argue that in the closest possible world in which n does exist, true mathematical statements about n can be made despite there being no physical way to actually get to n.

Thirdly, I can also do maths on infinities. As with the conceptual n, most infinities very defnitely do not exist in physical reality. Regardless of what you do, even if it turns out certain things are infinitely divisible, you simply are not going to be able to get a set of real things to correspond to aleph-omega. And yet, I can make true statements about it.

As for other forms - yeah, I limited myself to trying to show that some forms might exist, rather than 'Plato was right' for a reason. But I'd argue that 'the perfect horse' would be the wrong way to think about a form of horse - it would be more like an abstract object consisting of the properties that made all those different things 'horses', despite their differences. Besically, a form of horse would be more like a kind of set than an actual horse. And forms could overlap - you would have a form of horse that is what horses resemble, but also a form of equine, a form of zebra, and a form of mammal. And the form of equine would consist of all the properties that make you look at all the different kinds of equine and say 'that's an equine', the form of zebra all those things that make you say 'that's a zebra'. It would not be an actual zebra, in the sense we understand it. Etc.

Still not convinced this is actually what the update was talking about.

[guttering flame]

[SPOILER]


[SPOILER]Well, a few things there. If we're counting electrons, we can prove that two electrons plus another two electrons equals four electrons -[. . .]

You're forgetting the uncertainty principle in Quantum mechanics. 2+2 only shmaybe equals 4. You'll need a different branch of math to describes what goes on there. Still math of course but not highschool arithmetics math.

Besically, a form of horse would be more like a kind of set than an actual horse.

I wouldn't call that an ideal horse though, just a definition of a horse. Is a good dictionary Plato's land of Ideals?

[Sniccups]

GiantITP: The only part of the internet where discussing a webcomic leads to discussion of Star Wars and metaphysical philosophy, at the same time, over less than a page.

Edit: Some questions I have about the story.
1: How did those other Dirtamancers dig through bedrock? Went back to the Archive and found how Charlie linked with them.
2: Does anyone know what's going on with the portal patterns that have been appearing on the bedrock? Are they pieces of portals?

[JavaScribe]

2: Does anyone know what's going on with the portal patterns that have been appearing on the bedrock? Are they pieces of portals?

Portals have some sort of focus device that makes the portal project correctly. Ivan Poe discovered that this device can be damaged with Carnymancy+Dirtamancy, which causes it to splatter bits of portal on the bedrock. Now Charlescomm and Gobwin Knob are taking advantage of this for covert ops below the MK's surface.

[Xaphan]

You're forgetting the uncertainty principle in Quantum mechanics. 2+2 only shmaybe equals 4. You'll need a different branch of math to describes what goes on there. Still math of course but not highschool arithmetics math.

I... don't think that's actually true. Quantum mechanics says I can't know very much about the electron. And it says new electrons can appear out of thin air sometimes (simplifying). But it doesn't, to the best of my knowledge, change how maths works. If a fifth electron appears in the middle of me doing the sum, that doesn't mean that 2+2=4, it just means that the sum turned into 2+2+1=5 while I wasn't looking.

(I used to be able to give the set theory proof of '2+2=4', but it was annoying, so I forgot it.)

I wouldn't call that an ideal horse though, just a definition of a horse. Is a good dictionary Plato's land of Ideals?

The form of Horse isn't the ideal horse, though. Or... it kinda is, but not really? At least the way modern Platonists use it.

OK. Take the metaphor of the cave. You know that one, right? Load of people trapped in a cave, they see shadows on the wall and think they're reality? The shadows represent our world, the things casting them represent the forms.

But the things casting the shadows are actually very different from the shadows themselves. They're three dimensional, for a start. The Form of horse is not actually a horse, any more than I am a shadow. But at the same time, despite the differences, the shadow flows from and resembles me, and the horse in some sense flows from and resembles the Form of horse.

And no. To a formalist, a good definition of the necessary and sufficient properties of any noun will describe the Form of that noun, but a description is not the thing it describes - just as a map of Greenland is not the same thing as Greenland.

(I actually don't think they're called 'formalists', but they believe in Forms, so I'm adding a new definition, and noone can stop me.)

[Razade]

Spoiler

Show

Wellllll. Actually, the correspondence theory of truth kinda requires truthmakers, and the philpapers survey (https://philpapers.org/surveys/) puts correspondence theory at 50.8% of philosophers. That is within the margin of error, but truthmakers are used in other theories too, so it's probably a safe bet that I really do mean 'most'.

Other than that... yes. I agree? Numbers aren't dependent on humans, either, which is why I said they couldn't be the result of the human mind. Abstract objects and imaginary ones are conceptually distinct, and the whole point of the Platonic Forms is that they don't depend on humans.

50.8% of philosophers polled. Not 50.8% of all philosophers. Considering the polls (two surveys) had 2530 people I'd say that's not at all "all philosophers". Or even a tenth of them. So somewhere in the range of 1265 people responded to the affirmative. So I think I'm well within my right to say...point stands. As to the rest...I'd rather keep with scientists over philosophers thanks.