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  1. - Top - End - #121
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    Because it’s a prophecy, just like “when the goat turns red strikes true”.
    So what!? It's the third time that I tell you that the existence of ambiguously worded prophecies does not invalidate the existence of non-ambiguously worded prophecies like knowing that Durkon would die before going home, Xyko,n would attack Azure City, the Pyramid and the Tomb in that Order, that Beelkar would kill the Oracle at a precise time and be under a precise geas while doing so, knowing that a ghost would be present and refuse to leave while an important client is coming, knowing the exact circumstances of the Oracle's next death and knowing that Vaarsuvius would be on the ocean west of the Southern Continent. If you want to argue that no-one in the OOTS world has exact foreknowledge of (parts of) the future, you need to explain all that,
    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    Also, I haven’t seen evidence that anyone or anything in OotS-verse has complete foreknowledge of what will happen (which is separate from both prophecy or determinism in my mind).
    How could prophecy be separrate from foreknowledge? You need the latter to make the former!
    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    A few characters have a very small measure of pre-knowledge, but it seems muddled, unclear, and often not very helpful to them.
    The Oracle is doing very well, isn't he?
    Quote Originally Posted by Emanick View Post
    What Existential Comics asserts is not that Marty and Doc had the power to create a new timeline - it is that, merely by being able to observe the original timeline, they should have seen an entirely different series of events play out if free will actually exists. That seems absurd to me, because there is no reason to believe that Marty would have created a new past for his parents merely by being there in 1955 to watch events unfold. If he watched his parents live through the entire week without doing anything to interfere, their timelines would not be split.
    Ah, I think I've found the origin of our disagreement. I think the timelines split when Marty & Doc travelled through time, not at the first action they took while in the past. After all time-travelling is the one action that messes with time. But in any case the first change they create to 1955 was well before they met Marty's parents, when Marty ran over one pine. Hell, that's just the first change to ripple through 1985, the first change they created was the apparition of a two-ton moving car inside a barn, and then breathing air that wouldn't have been breathed at that point, etc. By the time they reach MArty's parents they were already in a second timeline.
    Quote Originally Posted by Emanick View Post
    They would behave exactly the same way, not because they lacked free will, but because A = A. Regardless of whether behavior is predetermined or not, you cannot learn anything by observing that a group of people made the same series of choices in Scenario A as they did in... Scenario A. That's not a novel observation, it's a tautology.
    Quote Originally Posted by Emanick View Post
    What Back to the Future does show is that people will behave differently when their circumstances change, but since more or less every theory about determinism and free will accounts for this fact, I don't find it particularly significant.
    No, the idea of libertarian free-will is that your decisions is not completely subject to circumstances and therefore people could behave the same under differentcircumstances or diffrently under identical ones. It fails however to establish any kind of mecanism under which people could make decisions when faced with identical circumstances, basically positing that people's choices are random. Libertarian free-will is basically seeing a dterministic universe and making a special pleading case for humans not being deterministic based on no evidence.

    Quote Originally Posted by Emanick View Post
    I don't find the idea of an extramaterial soul with causal power absurd (indeed, I find it the only satisfying explanation for the existence of consciousness), so I don't personally find libertarian free will silly at all. Nor does that conception of the world imply that our decision-making process is random. But since I'm fairly certain that we're not allowed to discuss that sort of thing on these forums, we'd better stick to Back to the Future and Existential Comics.
    Yeah, I disagree with everything in your first two sentences, but let's not discuss religion/the soul. I don't think however discussing free-will breaks the forum rules.
    Forum Wisdom

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  2. - Top - End - #122
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    Yep. My headcanon is that Xykon's response to being given a prophecy he didn't want would involve a death too gruesome to contemplate. Or come back from.

    Grey Wolf
    That's my headcanon too. Xykon was almost certainly going to kill and soulbind the Oracle, because he wouldn't want someone able to locate his philactery to be available to his potential enemies.

    Still I find odd that the Oracle went through all that effort to make Belkar trigger the Mark of Justice, which ultimately was helpful to the hobbit halfling, who the Oracle was supposed to dislike. The banishment of Roy I do not think was an overlooking because the Oracle gave the info about Belkar's death as a prophecy so Roy was going to remember anyway. I still have the impression that there was more in that whole scene than we believe.
    Last edited by The Pilgrim; 2019-06-15 at 06:49 AM.

  3. - Top - End - #123
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by The Pilgrim View Post
    That's my headcanon too. Still I find odd that the Oracle went through all that effort to make Belkar trigger the Mark of Justice, which ultimately was beneficial to the hobbit halfling, who the Oracle was supposed to dislike. The banishment of Roy I do not think was an overlooking because the Oracle gave the info about Belkar's death as a prophecy so Roy was going to remember anyway. I still have the impression that there was more in that whole scene than we believe.
    Roy was going to remember the prophecy, but not any of the rest. I think that scene illustrates that while the Oracle can see the future, he's not omniscient and can still make mistakes.
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  4. - Top - End - #124
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by The Pilgrim View Post
    Still I find odd that the Oracle went through all that effort to make Belkar trigger the Mark of Justice, which ultimately was helpful to the hobbit halfling, who the Oracle was supposed to dislike.
    It might have been ultimately beneficial, but for however many weeks it took them to get from the Oracle's valley to Greysky City, Belkar was very, very sick indeed. Given there was no other way the Oracle could realistically get revenge on Belkar for his death, I think he just chose to do what he could and be happy with it.

  5. - Top - End - #125
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    It might have been ultimately beneficial, but for however many weeks it took them to get from the Oracle's valley to Greysky City, Belkar was very, very sick indeed. Given there was no other way the Oracle could realistically get revenge on Belkar for his death, I think he just chose to do what he could and be happy with it.
    Yep, probably the Priest of Loki would have removed the Mark to allow Belkar save him, triggered or not. And anyway Hinjo promised Belkar to remove the Mark, so he would have done so at the end of DStP. So the Oracle ensured Belkar went through a bit of pain, yep.

  6. - Top - End - #126
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    It’s also possible that without the mark triggered, Belkar would have split, gone to Greysky to find someone who would remove the Mark and then gone on to live longer than he is going to.
    Edit: or alternatively the world would have blown up without him helping along, he has already been instrumental in freeing Durkon and thwarting Hel.
    Last edited by Fyraltari; 2019-06-15 at 07:02 AM.

  7. - Top - End - #127
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    It could be that the Oracle was okay with ultimately helping Belkar by making him less of a jerk, so long as Belkar suffers in the process. Like... nothing about him really indicates to me that he's so hateful towards Belkar that he wants to avoid teaching him any lessons through punishment, because then his life might be better, and oh no, we cant have that!

    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    I believe causal determinism is a requirement for free will to exist in our universe.

    Without determinism, what happens next doesn’t depend on what occurred in the past.

    In other words, without determinism, things just happen because they’re going to happen.

    It’s impossible to make meaningful choices without determinism, because your choices can’t have any impact on what happens. What happens is just whatever was going to happen, regardless of your choice.

    EDIT: obviously, this doesn’t apply to OotS-verse, where free will and determinism is free to work in other ways.
    How do any of the above considerations apply any less to the world of the comic than to our own world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    So what!? It's the third time that I tell you that the existence of ambiguously worded prophecies does not invalidate the existence of non-ambiguously worded prophecies
    And Dion didn't contradict you. Why not take that as a silent admission of error? You've plainly laid out how not all prophesies have been ambiguous, so admitting being wrong about that would just be stating the obvious. No need to harp on it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    How could prophecy be separrate from foreknowledge? You need the latter to make the former!
    You need to know the future to know ahead of time that a prediction will be accurate, but an accurate prediction could also be a lucky guess, and inaccurate predictions are possible as well. Even if neither of those is what's going on with any prophesy in OotS, prophesy and foreknowledge can still be conceptually separate things. Unless you define the former to require the latter, at which point we're arguing definitions, which gets us into broader discussion on semantics. And the inherently recursive nature of question "What does 'means' mean?" complicates discussion to such a degree as to warrant its own thread, I think.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Ah, I think I've found the origin of our disagreement. I think the timelines split when Marty & Doc travelled through time, not at the first action they took while in the past. After all time-travelling is the one action that messes with time. But in any case the first change they create to 1955 was well before they met Marty's parents, when Marty ran over one pine. Hell, that's just the first change to ripple through 1985, the first change they created was the apparition of a two-ton moving car inside a barn, and then breathing air that wouldn't have been breathed at that point, etc. By the time they reach MArty's parents they were already in a second timeline.
    If their arrival in the past isn't what split the timeline, then the original 1955 already contained a time-traveling Doc and Marty who didn't change anything. And then the timeline was split, not by time travel, but in some other way. That's internally consistent, just pretty much the opposite of parsimonious. Why else would the timeline split? Because the timeline just naturally splits all the time? But in that case also one would expect to observe a different sequence of events than the original, because most forks in the timeline don't lead to the future that you're from.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Libertarian free-will is basically seeing a dterministic universe and making a special pleading case for humans not being deterministic based on no evidence.
    It seems like you're claiming that metaphysical libertarians are aware that in general there are no truly random events, but hold an irrational belief that human choices are an exception.

    I dispute that the first part of that is an accurate generalization. I suspect that most metaphysical libertarians believe that some behavior of intimate matter is genuinely random as well.

    Quote Originally Posted by Emanick View Post
    I don't find the idea of an extramaterial soul with causal power absurd (indeed, I find it the only satisfying explanation for the existence of consciousness)
    (Attributing consciousness to an extramaterial soul doesn't explain it any more than does attributing consciousness to the brain. Identifying the location or source of a phenomenon isn't the same thing as detailing how it happens.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Emanick View Post
    But since I'm fairly certain that we're not allowed to discuss that sort of thing on these forums, we'd better stick to Back to the Future and Existential Comics.
    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Yeah, I disagree with everything in your first two sentences, but let's not discuss religion/the soul. I don't think however discussing free-will breaks the forum rules.
    Eh? Religious views on free will and determinism are as religious as religious views on the soul, and non-religious views on the soul are as non-religious as non-religious views on free will and determinism.
    Quote Originally Posted by icefractal View Post
    Abstract positioning, either fully "position doesn't matter" or "zones" or whatever, is fine. If the rules reflect that. Exact positioning, with a visual representation, is fine. But "exact positioning theoretically exists, and the rules interact with it, but it only exists in the GM's head and is communicated to the players a bit at a time" sucks for anything even a little complex. And I say this from a GM POV.

  8. - Top - End - #128
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    {snip}

    How could prophecy be separrate from foreknowledge? You need the latter to make the former!

    {snip}
    It seems like Dion appears to be equating "prophecy" with "predication" and thus any random guess is considered a "prophecy" to him and thus doesn't require foreknowledge. This is contrary to how everyone else appears to be using the word, because we're not willfully ignoring actual context and misunderstanding the story to prove a point that isn't actually applicable to it.
    Last edited by Rrmcklin; 2019-06-15 at 02:09 PM.
    I'd just like to point out that saying that something unsupported is the case unless someone else can prove that it is not is an utter failure of logic. - Kish

  9. - Top - End - #129
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    The way that time travel works in Back to the Future doesn't really have any bearing on the comic either, but that hasn't stopped anyone from discussing that. Opposing the "devolution" of threads into side discussions seems like setting oneself up for heaps of disappointment. Furthermore, is not complaining about a side discussion itself a side discussion that does not address the original topic?

    Personally, I the way that these conversations can go on so many different tangents. "Life is a side quest! Seize the XP!"
    Quote Originally Posted by icefractal View Post
    Abstract positioning, either fully "position doesn't matter" or "zones" or whatever, is fine. If the rules reflect that. Exact positioning, with a visual representation, is fine. But "exact positioning theoretically exists, and the rules interact with it, but it only exists in the GM's head and is communicated to the players a bit at a time" sucks for anything even a little complex. And I say this from a GM POV.

  10. - Top - End - #130
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rrmcklin View Post
    It seems like Dion appears to be equating "prophecy" with "predication" and thus any random guess is considered a "prophecy" to him and thus doesn't require foreknowledge. .
    Can you describe what you mean by foreknowledge?

    If I prophecize that before the year 2150 I will be dead, few people would claim I possessed much foreknowledge, and nobody would claim I was omniscient.

    When the oracle said Durkon would return home posthumously. I don’t think he had any more foreknowledge of how or why that would happen than I would if I said I’ll be dead sometime in the next 130 years.

    I think the oracle knows *something* will happen to make his statement true. I think has no idea what will actually happen to make it true.

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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    Can you describe what you mean by foreknowledge?

    If I prophecize that before the year 2150 I will be dead, few people would claim I possessed much foreknowledge, and nobody would claim I was omniscient.

    When the oracle said Durkon would return home posthumously. I don’t think he had any more foreknowledge of how or why that would happen than I would if I said I’ll be dead sometime in the next 130 years.

    I think the oracle knows *something* will happen to make his statement true. I think has no idea what will actually happen to make it true.
    You are grossly misrepresenting what the Oracle does and can do, based on our knowledge. The Oracle essentially said "Durkon (physical body or otherwise) will not be present in the Dwarven Lands until after Durkon has died at least once." No mention of any other condition. The fact that Durkon came back to the Dwarven Lands in itself does not mean much, but the way it happened such that Durkon had already died, and did not return at any other point, means something more.
    An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Squire Doodad View Post
    You are grossly misrepresenting what the Oracle does and can do, based on our knowledge.
    And I think people are grossly mistaken about what they see the oracle doing.

    Suppose someone told you they were going to spend a month in Colorado hiking, and you said “I predict that at some point you will be at exactly 3,000 meters elevation”.

    Suppose they came back from their trip and said “wow, how did you know that I would be on the Pikes Peak trail at 8:32 am in the morning on Tuesday? That’s amazing! But why didn’t you tell me to have a camera ready to take a picture of the elk?”

    You’d think they were nuts. You had no idea how or when or where they were going to be at 3,000m. It was just (virtually) guaranteed that they would.

    That’s how I see the reaction to the Oracle in this thread. Read what he REALLY is predicting. My default position is that what he ACTUALLY SAYS is the complete and full extent of his knowledge.

    Clearly there are cases where he knows quite a lot (like with Belkar’s curse).

    But I have no reason to imagine some crazy complicated mechanism that would allow him to know anything more about what would happen to Durkon, Haley, Belkar, or Elan that’s exactly what he said to them.

  13. - Top - End - #133
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    My default position is that what he ACTUALLY SAYS is the complete and full extent of his knowledge.

    Clearly there are cases where he knows quite a lot (like with Belkar’s curse).

    But I have no reason to imagine some crazy complicated mechanism that would allow him to know anything more about what would happen to Durkon, Haley, Belkar, or Elan that’s exactly what he said to them.
    The Oracle can explicitly look into the future, and can apparently read the books in that future. So I would say that there is a simple mechanism (reading the books in the future) that allows him to know exactly what would happen to Durkon, Haley, Belkar, or Elan.
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    More to the point, the Oracle's business is answering people's questions, not telling them literally every single detail of how things got to that point.

    For the most part people seem okay with that because it's the result they care about, not the journey, and even if they did care the Oracle is a jerk who very clearly doesn't like telling more than is asked.

    But to claim that the above somehow invalidates or makes ambiguous his knowledge of the future is ridiculous.
    Last edited by Rrmcklin; 2019-06-15 at 08:42 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    And I think people are grossly mistaken about what they see the oracle doing.

    Suppose someone told you they were going to spend a month in Colorado hiking, and you said “I predict that at some point you will be at exactly 3,000 meters elevation”.

    Suppose they came back from their trip and said “wow, how did you know that I would be on the Pikes Peak trail at 8:32 am in the morning on Tuesday? That’s amazing! But why didn’t you tell me to have a camera ready to take a picture of the elk?”

    You’d think they were nuts. You had no idea how or when or where they were going to be at 3,000m. It was just (virtually) guaranteed that they would.
    Durkon did not say "I have been banished from the Dwarven Lands, and my family is probably going to look for my body for the ceremonial burial if they can drum up the cash, will I ever return". He said "Will I ever return to the dwarven lands". The Oracle replying "posthumously" to the first question would be grim at first and then after the vampire bit be more insightful, but easily guessing. For the second question, it is grim and then insightful, but...is highly improbable to be just guessing, because while it is true, the Oracle is far from the Dwarven Lands and so could easily assume Durkon would die in the area where he is. The odds of Durkon dying in a random dungeon, and the odds of his body never returning in the first place, means that it is a far cry from "Information" "Nearly tautological comment based on information".

    V's comment is far more interesting, as it has even less predictability. What are the odds of V actually acquiring ultimate arcane powers? Well, given that V was a pretty high level mage for a world where few wizards make it past 10th level...pretty decent. He might not get to "I am as unto a god" tier, but he'd probably master some immensely powerful spells. Then you have the 4 words to the right entity. That is VERY specific. What are the odds of someone making a faustian bargain to get ultimate magical power, when they seem sane now? What are the odds of someone accomplishing something with four words? You could say there's a good chance. You could say it would be probable. But the Oracle evidently does not care to know his clients very well, and so the odds of HIM KNOWING that V would do all this without magical doodads and whatnot are slim to none.

    The other comments like the "pair of family reunions" (alluding to Nale and Julia using Sending, which the Oracle would know nothing about without spending way too much time on people he doesn't care about) also explicitly demonstrate the Oracle's abilities.
    Last edited by Squire Doodad; 2019-06-15 at 09:06 PM.
    An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.

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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Squire Doodad View Post
    Durkon did not say "I have been banished from the Dwarven Lands, and my family is probably going to look for my body for the ceremonial burial if they can drum up the cash, will I ever return". He said "Will I ever return to the dwarven lands".
    Pickin' some nits: He asked how he would return to the Dwarven lands. The response makes more sense due to the "how."
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Pickin' some nits: He asked how he would return to the Dwarven lands. The response makes more sense due to the "how."
    Thanks for catching that. It still matters little, in retrospect V's question is ever more damming (*rimshot*) of a piece of evidence...for a point that is already in-universe canon and cannot be argued in virtually any way unless one disregards clear and concise information that has been confirmed many times over.

    I liked the timeline discussion better.
    An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    My default position is that what he ACTUALLY SAYS is the complete and full extent of his knowledge.
    That's downright preposterous. No one says the complete and full extent of their knowledge. Ever. You have no idea what I know about Japanese words and phrases because it's never come up.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    That's downright preposterous. No one says the complete and full extent of their knowledge. Ever. You have no idea what I know about Japanese words and phrases because it's never come up.
    Or even their full knowledge on a specific topic at hand. What someone says is always incomplete, whether by their own failings or, more commonly, a purposeful omission for whatever reason.
    An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.

    See my extended signature here! May contain wit, candor, and somewhere from 52 to 8127 walruses.

    Purple is humorous descriptions made up on the fly
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    And I think people are grossly mistaken about what they see the oracle doing.

    But I have no reason to imagine some crazy complicated mechanism that would allow him to know anything more about what would happen to Durkon, Haley, Belkar, or Elan that’s exactly what he said to them.
    You are the one grossly mistaken and indeed clearly ignoring the evidence in front of you. The Oracle is not doing guesswork. He has been shown capable of predicting the times of his own death down to the exact minute. That is far, far beyond guesswork.

    Knowing the exact count of words that would give V ultimate Arcane power is a similar example of something beyond guesswork. As is Haley's answer, and of course Elan's.

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    Last edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2019-06-15 at 10:25 PM.
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    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    You are the one grossly mistaken and indeed clearly ignoring the evidence in front of you. The Oracle is not doing guesswork. He has been shown capable of predicting the times of his own death down to the exact minute. That is far, far beyond guesswork.

    Knowing the exact count of words that would give V ultimate Arcane power is a similar example of something beyond guesswork. As is Haley's answer, and of course Elan's.

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    Haley's answer is indeed almost definitely more than guesswork. Elan's is more debatable, if only because Elan is very very optimistic.
    Last edited by Squire Doodad; 2019-06-15 at 10:29 PM.
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  22. - Top - End - #142
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Squire Doodad View Post
    Elan's is more debatable, if only because Elan is very very optimistic.
    Come again?

    Not all the optimism in the world would make the correct answer to "Will this story have a happy ending?" be "Yes" if it was going to end with Xykon killing every other named character.

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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    Come again?

    Not all the optimism in the world would make the correct answer to "Will this story have a happy ending?" be "Yes" if it was going to end with Xykon killing every other named character.
    It was more a comment on one being perceived as gullible because of optimism, but it's frankly irrelevant.
    An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.

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  24. - Top - End - #144
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    Come again?

    Not all the optimism in the world would make the correct answer to "Will this story have a happy ending?" be "Yes" if it was going to end with Xykon killing every other named character.
    Or "the gods destroy the world and everyone in it, as they have done billions of times before". Or indeed "The snarl breaks free and devours all souls", both of which are frankly far more statistically likely.

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    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    Or "the gods destroy the world and everyone in it, as they have done billions of times before". Or indeed "The snarl breaks free and devours all souls", both of which are frankly far more statistically likely.

    Grey Wolf
    Yes yes, point taken. The tidbit about Elan's question was unnecessary.
    An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.

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  26. - Top - End - #146
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    You are the one grossly mistaken and indeed clearly ignoring the evidence in front of you. The Oracle is not doing guesswork. He has been shown capable of predicting the times of his own death down to the exact minute. That is far, far beyond guesswork.

    Knowing the exact count of words that would give V ultimate Arcane power is a similar example of something beyond guesswork. As is Haley's answer, and of course Elan's.
    I never said the oracle was guessing. I said there's no reason to believe he knows more than he's saying.

    Yes, the oracle knew the exact count of words. That doesn't mean he knew which words, or who V would say them to, or why, or when, or anything else beyond the fact that their would be 4 words.

    Think about it like math. There are all sorts of theorems in math that tell you that an object must satisfy some factual statement, without telling you how it satisfies that statement. For example, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic is "every natural number can be factored into unique primes". But just because you can look at an number and say unequivocally that it factors into unique primes, that doesn't give anyone the ability to actually know what the primes are.

    My default position for any story with accurate prophecy is that the story occurs in a universe where a prophecy is a mathematically true statement (like there are unique prime factors), without necessarily telling you how it's true (like what the prime factors actually are).

    The Oracle clearly knows some things in very great detail. But his knowledge of the world is similar to V's ability to throw fireballs. Just because V can throw a fireball, that doesn't make V omnipotent. And just because the oracle can know some things, that doesn't make the oracle omniscient.
    Last edited by Dion; 2019-06-16 at 12:23 AM.

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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    My default position for any story with accurate prophecy is that the story occurs in a universe where a prophecy is a mathematically true statement (like there are unique prime factors), without necessarily telling you how it's true (like what the prime factors actually are).
    Which is all well and good, but should have changed when the Oracle said "I can look into the future, read the future books, and have all the answers." Or even earlier when he says the entire point of the memory charm is because he rambles and lets soothsayings slip on by all willy nilly.

    Either way, there is very much reason to believe he knows more than he's saying.
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  28. - Top - End - #148
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    It’s impossible to make meaningful choices without determinism, because your choices can’t have any impact on what happens. What happens is just whatever was going to happen, regardless of your choice.

    Also, I haven’t seen evidence that anyone or anything in OotS-verse has complete foreknowledge of what will happen (which is separate from both prophecy or determinism in my mind). A few characters have a very small measure of pre-knowledge, but it seems muddled, unclear, and often not very helpful to them.
    I think this is more a general symptom of characters not being allowed to derive any useful information from prophecy because acting intelligently on said information would inevitably alter the foreseen future (or conversely cause it to be fulfilled in various contrived bull**** ways.) I'm not... crazy about prophetic visions as a plot device for this reason.

    With that said, I do think the Oracle having effective or near-total omniscience is pretty heavily implied by the text. He's just kind of a jerk about it.
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    Default Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lacuna Caster View Post
    I think this is more a general symptom of characters not being allowed to derive any useful information from prophecy because acting intelligently on said information would inevitably alter the foreseen future (or conversely cause it to be fulfilled in various contrived bull**** ways.) I'm not... crazy about prophetic visions as a plot device for this reason.
    I can totally understand that, and I kind of like that that wasn't so much an issue in OotS; Roy acted intelligently to the prophecy, but got his question wrong, which was an amusing inversion. Durkon and V didn't care about anything but the end result of their prophecies, and even as they realized they were happening welcomed them; Haley simply took the advice, and that resolved her issues; Elan just asked as general a question as he could, I'd lump him in there with Durkon and V; and Belkar, well, he was always wanting his to come true regardless.

    Now, the dragon, she totally acted intelligently on hers, and that ended up biting her in the rear hard, but that was hardly her fault.
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    d6 Re: Is everything pre-determined in OOTS world?

    Simply put it is a story. The author writes the story. Do yes a book or a movie never changes once completed.
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