OOTS #1244 - The Discussion Thread

[Fyraltari]

Yeah, but there's also no prophecy saying you WILL pick a tuna sandwich, that you can then react to by trying (and succeeding or failing) to eat something else.

But why a tuna sandwich? Who was it who decided the prophecy would speak of a tuna sandwich and not a Caesar salad? It was not the Oracle who is just the messenger. It's me, when I will choose to eat that tuna sandwich. (Excellent choice by the way.)

Because I am the man who likes tuna sandwiches so much I would choose to eat one even knowing my choice was foretold. Were I a man who does not like tuna sandwiches that much the prophecy would not have said so. Were I a man who loves Caesar salads that much, that is the dish the prophecy would have talked about.
So in the end, it is not the act of prophecy, but my desire for a specific food that results in me eating a tuna sandwich tomorrow. And what is a choice but the mecanism through which desire selects one hypothetical among many and makes it reality?

[Psyren]

But why a tuna sandwich? Who was it who decided the prophecy would speak of a tuna sandwich and not a Caesar salad? It was not the Oracle who is just the messenger. It's me, when I will choose to eat that tuna sandwich. (Excellent choice by the way.)

Right, you will eat a tuna sandwich, therefore you have no actual choice in the matter, and the prophecy reflects that.

My point is more a cautionary about how tricky it is to use prophecy in fiction - it needs limits to avoid leaching tension from a story. I believe those limits exist here in OotS, but we don't know all of them.

[Fyraltari]

Right, you will eat a tuna sandwich, therefore you have no actual choice in the matter, and the prophecy reflects that.

Quite the contrary, the prophecy reflects my choice. Or are you using another meaning of the word choice, than I am?

My point is more a cautionary about how tricky it is to use prophecy in fiction - it needs limits to avoid leaching tension from a story. I believe those limits exist here in OotS, but we don't know all of them.

Sure we do: none of the protagonists or antagonists have prophetic powers. To gain knowledge of the future, they need to ask a minor characters who wishes to only have a minimal involvement in the plot, is self-serving, and will give intentionnally unhelpful answers if he can get away with it.

[Psyren]

Quite the contrary, the prophecy reflects my choice. Or are you using another meaning of the word choice, than I am?

A choice you already made before you made it apparently?

Sure we do: none of the protagonists or antagonists have prophetic powers. To gain knowledge of the future, they need to ask a minor characters who wishes to only have a minimal involvement in the plot, is self-serving, and will give intentionnally unhelpful answers if he can get away with it.

He doesn't appear to be unhelpful towards the ABD.

[Fyraltari]

A choice you already made before you made it apparently?

You're thinking linearly about non-linear things.

He doesn't appear to be unhelpful towards the ABD.

Didn't tell her about no Soul Splice.

[Psyren]

Didn't tell her about no Soul Splice.

Indeed, and we don't know why. Willful sabotage, or unwilling limitation?

You're thinking linearly about non-linear things.

Okay, sure.

[Fyraltari]

Indeed, and we don't know why. Willful sabotage, or unwilling limitation?

Imma guess, "knew that Vaarsuvius will play a role in saving the world, so did not help the ABD word her question better and enforced the One question per customer rule."

[Psyren]

Imma guess, "knew that Vaarsuvius will play a role in saving the world, so did not help the ABD word her question better and enforced the One question per customer rule."

So willful sabotage.

(My personal preference is that the Oracle isn't omniscient, but I suppose we'll see.)

[Wraithfighter]

He doesn't appear to be unhelpful towards the ABD.

I mean, letting someone go into a confrontation that will lead to their death, as well as the deaths of everyone that's related to them, no matter how distantly, certainly doesn't sound helpful.

[danielxcutter]

Especially since his powers come from Tiamat and, y'know, her favored beings are chromatic dragons.

[Fyraltari]

So willful sabotage.

(My personal preference is that the Oracle isn't omniscient, but I suppose we'll see.)

He already knew about the deal, though.

I really much doubt we'll see, this kind of nitpicking is probably veeeeery low on the Giant's list of things to explain about OotS.

[Psyren]

I mean, letting someone go into a confrontation that will lead to their death, as well as the deaths of everyone that's related to them, no matter how distantly, certainly doesn't sound helpful.

Especially since his powers come from Tiamat and, y'know, her favored beings are chromatic dragons.

Right, all of which implies a limitation of some kind on his powers.

I really much doubt we'll see, this kind of nitpicking is probably veeeeery low on the Giant's list of things to explain about OotS.

I agree, and so revisiting the Oracle from a Serini angle feels unlikely.

[Sienar]

Is there a joke or reference I'm missing with the title? Typically "maxxed", as in maximizing is spelled "maxed". Given, it could be a typo but The Giant is too good a writer for me to make that my first assumption. But after reading #1244 multiple times, I don't see anything else.

What am I missing?

[Ionathus]

RE: "why wasn't The Oracle more helpful towards the ABD, whom he seemed to respect?"

The psychology of being an oracle is fascinating to me. If you were an oracle with total foreknowledge and perfect information, would you do anything other than constantly answer your teammates' questions? How would you be functionally different than, say, a calculator or a Wikipedia search bar? Would you ever make your own choices or take actions, or would your teammates only allow you to sit in the back and answer questions?

Conversations with regular people who know the extent of your powers would be next to impossible. The follow-up questions would be non-stop. You would have to draw the line at some point, or else you'd never get anything else done.

I can absolutely see a scenario where The Oracle gave the ABD her answer and then didn't give it a second thought or follow-up questions/conclusions, because he's got the unfiltered information of the cosmos pouring through his head constantly. Basically, having the power of prophecy would always wind up turning you into either an all-knowing godlike being or a pretty casual "don't think about it too hard" kind of person.

Is there a joke or reference I'm missing with the title? Typically "maxxed", as in maximizing is spelled "maxed". Given, it could be a typo but The Giant is too good a writer for me to make that my first assumption. But after reading #1244 multiple times, I don't see anything else.

What am I missing?

Would also like to know if there's anything special going on here! I have seen "maxxed" spelled with two "x"s before, I assume just because "maxed" is one of those words that looks wrong, so wouldn't be too surprised if there's no deeper pun.

[Psyren]

Is there a joke or reference I'm missing with the title? Typically "maxxed", as in maximizing is spelled "maxed". Given, it could be a typo but The Giant is too good a writer for me to make that my first assumption. But after reading #1244 multiple times, I don't see anything else.

What am I missing?

The Giant appears to spell it with two X's.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B

[Jasdoif]

The psychology of being an oracle is fascinating to me. If you were an oracle with total foreknowledge and perfect information, would you do anything other than constantly answer your teammates' questions?

Consider that with total foreknowledge and perfect information, you cannot leverage your total foreknowledge and perfect information to change anything; because any change would mean your information was imperfect and/or your foreknowledge was not total. You would be powerless to stop all the tragedies you see coming, by virtue of seeing them coming; and you see all of them coming.

[Ionathus]

The Giant appears to spell it with two X's.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B

How on earth do you have those citations ready to go at a moment's notice? Is there a transcript of strips somewhere I don't know about? Impressive.

Consider that with total foreknowledge and perfect information, you cannot leverage your total foreknowledge and perfect information to change anything; because any change would mean your information was imperfect and/or your foreknowledge was not total. You would be powerless to stop all the tragedies you see coming, by virtue of seeing them coming; and you see all of them coming.

Unless he's of the Dune style of prediction, where you can see all possible futures and know more or less what actions to take to effect them.

But yes, we are drifting back into brain-hurting territory now that you mention it.

[Jasdoif]

Unless he's of the Dune style of prediction, where you can see all possible futures and know more or less what actions to take to effect them.

That's just it, though: Total foreknowledge and perfect information means you already know exactly what actions will be taken, including your own. There is only one possible future: you see that future, and you seeing it means it cannot be prevented.

Which leads to the interesting side effect of this whole thing: A universe that supports anyone having total and perfect foreknowledge necessarily has a singular possible timeline from the first point anyone gets total and perfect foreknowledge; and with a singular possible timeline it's largely irrelevant to the people in that universe whether anyone has total perfect foreknowledge since the information cannot be meaningfully acted upon (at best you can get a series of "meets their destiny on their way to avoid it" plots). An audience outside the universe might view it differently, of course....

[Dion]

Hey guys, hear me out. I know this is going to come as a shock to you all, but I’ve done the math and finally figured out how the Oracle works, all the way down to the bio-quantum waveform predictions collapsing into harmonic nodes with self-referential resonance features.

On, are you all ready?

Really, totally, completely ready?

I’d put this in a spoiler tag, but I’m on a phone…

…

It’s just a joke. It’s supposed to funny. The Oracle doesn’t actually make sense.

[Psyren]

How on earth do you have those citations ready to go at a moment's notice? Is there a transcript of strips somewhere I don't know about? Impressive.

Thank you.

I remembered it because I was actually in your camp, and thought the Giant's spelling of that word was weird the first couple times I saw it, so I had a vague remembrance of those instances. Enough to know where to look anyway.

That's just it, though: Total foreknowledge and perfect information means you already know exactly what actions will be taken, including your own. There is only one possible future: you see that future, and you seeing it means it cannot be prevented.

Which leads to the interesting side effect of this whole thing: A universe that supports anyone having total and perfect foreknowledge necessarily has a singular possible timeline from the first point anyone gets total and perfect foreknowledge; and with a singular possible timeline it's largely irrelevant to the people in that universe whether anyone has total perfect foreknowledge since the information cannot be meaningfully acted upon (at best you can get a series of "meets their destiny on their way to avoid it" plots). An audience outside the universe might view it differently, of course....

This is why I prefer imperfect Oracles personally.

[Quizatzhaderac]

That's just it, though: Total foreknowledge and perfect information means you already know exactly what actions will be taken, including your own.

This has actually been explicitly hashed out by mathematicians.

An oracle's actions are determined by "all knowledge" and are thus actually new knowledge that exists outside of "all knowledge".

If oracle B is better than oracle A, then oracle B can know what oracle A will do, but not themself.

[Jasdoif]

That's just it, though: Total foreknowledge and perfect information means you already know exactly what actions will be taken, including your own.

This has actually been explicitly hashed out by mathematicians.

An oracle's actions are determined by "all knowledge" and are thus actually new knowledge that exists outside of "all knowledge".

If oracle B is better than oracle A, then oracle B can know what oracle A will do, but not themself.

Hm, "new knowledge that exists outside of 'all knowledge'" sounds a lot like "not total foreknowledge".

[Liquor Box]

I don't object to surface-level speculation about whether or not The Oracle is one of Serini's sources. I just don't think it's as productive a discussion to build complex arguments around one way or another, because prophecy is shown as very unreliable in OotS. Much like an earlier discussion of the mechanics of the amnesia potion, we simply don't know enough to speculate effectively.

I suppose this is more of a statement against Peelee's position than yours really, even if I don't oppose Peelee's original idea of Serini getting some intel from The Oracle. Consulting him once to begin her investigations wouldn't require she continue to get perfect information from him all the time: as someone mentioned earlier, even powerful characters like Xykon and the ABD can't rely fully on the Oracle's prophecies, even though they presumably would have the resources or clout to spam prophecies until they know "everything."₁

Basically, it doesn't get more "A Wizard Did It" than prophecies in fiction, so there's really just no way to make coherent arguments about them.

As I understood peelee's theory, it was not just that Serini went to the Oracle, went through the tests, paid the fee, then got a cryptic answer of a few word in the normal way. It was that Serini, being a monsterphile, had a special relationship with the Oracle whereby she didn't have to go through all the tests and got meaningful answers that were pretty much infallible.

I think this theory is unlikely because, if any sane person would have asked a lot more questions than "what happened to gate one?, gate two?" etc.

If we start limiting the information Serini is able to get out of the Oracle in the same way it seems to be limited for other characters - that is each question has a significant cost, and you only get a brief cryptic answer to each question, that doesn't pose any problems. But in that case, I don't think Serini would have got the level detail she seems to have about Soon's gate.

[bunsen_h]

You're thinking linearly about non-linear things.

One way to look at it is: if telling you that you'll be eating a tuna sandwich will cause you to eat something other than a tuna sandwich, the Oracle can't give you that answer. Instead, perhaps, if he must answer something that's true, he'll come up with something cryptic. It's a limitation on his abilities; it's the only way to achieve a self-consistent system.

Otherwise, you're getting into the territory of Gödel's meta-logic.

[Peelee]

As I understood peelee's theory, it was not just that Serini went to the Oracle, went through the tests, paid the fee, then got a cryptic answer of a few word in the normal way. It was that Serini, being a monsterphile, had a special relationship with the Oracle whereby she didn't have to go through all the tests and got meaningful answers that were pretty much infallible.

I think this theory is unlikely because, if any sane person would have asked a lot more questions than "what happened to gate one?, gate two?" etc.

If we start limiting the information Serini is able to get out of the Oracle in the same way it seems to be limited for other characters - that is each question has a significant cost, and you only get a brief cryptic answer to each question, that doesn't pose any problems. But in that case, I don't think Serini would have got the level detail she seems to have about Soon's gate.

By your argument, virtually all players in the comic are not sane. The Scribbles did not ask the Oracle if their Gates would be destroyed. The Order did not ask the Oracle where they would finally destroy Xykon. Eugene did not ask the Oracle any follow up questions concerning Xykon. Redcloak did not ask the Oracle, before he ever met Xykon, if The Plan would work.

Would you like to claim that every major player in the comic (sans Xykon) is not sane? Or, would you consider that characters in the comic do not have the same value you do on gleaning all possible knowledge from the Oracle?

[Liquor Box]

By your argument, virtually all players in the comic are not sane. The Scribbles did not ask the Oracle if their Gates would be destroyed. The Order did not ask the Oracle where they would finally destroy Xykon. Eugene did not ask the Oracle any follow up questions concerning Xykon. Redcloak did not ask the Oracle, before he ever met Xykon, if The Plan would work.

Would you like to claim that every major player in the comic (sans Xykon) is not sane? Or, would you consider that characters in the comic do not have the same value you do on gleaning all possible knowledge from the Oracle?

No, because as I said, the problem doesn't arise if you have to jump through a series of hoops to get a cryptic answer which is no more than a few words long. Most character don't go back to the Oracle because its time consuming, dangerous, expensive and the information they get is limited.

The problem arises where a character has unfettered access to the Oracle and receives clear and detailed answers.

[Peelee]

No, because as I said, the problem doesn't arise if you have to jump through a series of hoops to get a cryptic answer which is no more than a few words long. Most character don't go back to the Oracle because its time consuming, dangerous, expensive and the information they get is limited.

The problem arises where a character has unfettered access to the Oracle and receives clear and detailed answers.

Every character who visited the Oracle has unfettered access to the Oracle. And getting a clear and detailed answer can be attained by phrasing the question well. So no, I fail to see how this problem arises for her and yet for novody else.

[Liquor Box]

Every character who visited the Oracle has unfettered access to the Oracle. And getting a clear and detailed answer can be attained by phrasing the question well. So no, I fail to see how this problem arises for her and yet for novody else.

No they don't, they've had to jump through hoops to get there, so their access is not unfettered. That effectively puts a cost (risk, money and time) on each question. There's also a difference on the other side of the equation where they get less clear and less detailed answers, so answers that are less useful than what I think you are saying Serini is able to get.

[Peelee]

No they don't, they've had to jump through hoops to get there, so their access is not unfettered. That effectively puts a cost (risk, money and time) on each question. There's also a difference on the other side of the equation where they get less clear and less detailed answers, so answers that are less useful than what I think you are saying Serini is able to get.

If they got through the hoops once, they can get through again. I assume this was why you said Serini had unfettered access. If not... I certainly never said nor implied "unfettered access". Her access is the exact same as all others who have consulted the Oracle.

Further, all of those who asked him questions that were actually seeking help actually got that help. Those who were seeking information (eg Durkon, Roy, and Elan) got the information they asked for. That they retroactively realized their questions were bad should do nothing other than strengthen the argument that all such characters are morons/illogical/not sane, correct?

[Liquor Box]

If they got through the hoops once, they can get through again. I assume this was why you said Serini had unfettered access. If not... I certainly never said nor implied "unfettered access". Her access is the exact same as all others who have consulted the Oracle.

Ah, well I misunderstood then. I though I'd seen you say somewhere that Serini might be friendly with the Oracle. So your theory is that she has to pass the three tests and pay the fee each time?

Further, all of those who asked him questions that were actually seeking help actually got that help. Those who were seeking information (eg Durkon, Roy, and Elan) got the information they asked for. That they retroactively realized their questions were bad should do nothing other than strengthen the argument that all such characters are morons/illogical/not sane, correct?

I'm not saying that Oracle didn't answer those questions, or that those answers were completely unhelpful. But we haven't seen the Oracle giving anyone a detailed and clear explanation which would account for the information Serini seems to know about the destruction of Soon's gate. Again, I had thought your theory was that Serini had a firendly relationship and therefore got better answers than others. Is that not right?