 System Crash and AI |
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 Mar 20 2005, 10:54 PM
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#51
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The King In Yellow  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,922 Joined: 26-February 05 From: JWD Member No.: 7,121  |
I agree, the whole issue with favouring shamanistic/pagan/holistioc approaches to magic (and fringe religion) over the alchemical/paranaturalist scientist approach (and established, large, especially monotheist religions - you don't have to like them, but acknowledgeing their existence would be great!) has ticked me off too.
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Mar 20 2005, 11:15 PM
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#52
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Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
All three are in MitS, and individually show up in several other places (Threats 2, SotA64, SoE). |
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Mar 20 2005, 11:22 PM
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#53
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The King In Yellow Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,922 Joined: 26-February 05 From: JWD Member No.: 7,121 |
Well, not in great detail, just generally. Also, while SOTA expanded the hermetics nicely, I still kind of feel the shamanic, intuitive side of magic is a bit over-emphathised in SR.
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| Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_* |
Mar 20 2005, 11:24 PM
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#54
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Guests |
Yes, but those three you named came out how long since SR began? Until recently, they paid minor lip service to religion and magic. To be fair, I can only imagine the reasons why it was a good idea for FASA to not discuss religion and magic together for the longest time. But after a decade, it's a safe bet that they could discuss it without some of the backlash they would have faced back in 1989.
And this favoritism is another indication of why I dislike his writing style. I much prefer an author who can actually write about something they personally don't like without coming off judgmentally. Or, to put it another way: “When you write about somebody you hate, write about them with love..." -- Hubert Selby, Jr. (now there's an author). |
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Mar 20 2005, 11:20 PM
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#55
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Karma Police Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 1,358 Joined: 22-July 04 From: Gothenburg, SE Member No.: 6,505 |
I completely agree. There should be more on the subject of angels, demons and priestly magic. They could easily cut down on the amount of shamanic traditions to make room. And somehow I suspect we will see a lot of the stuff from the SotA books in the main 4:th ed book, so that might not be a long shot.
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Mar 20 2005, 11:22 PM
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#56
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Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
Magic cannot exist without intuitive, the leap of faith. Even the hermetics admit that. Science alone is not enough: period. And who would want them to screw up the major religions like they did the few shamanic traditions they mention? Seriously, hermetic magic is the smallest fraction of real world magical traditions; the fact it gets so much attention is evidence that the game is geared to a Western audience. And angels and demons? Fuck no. Shadowrun cannot answer questions about religion. Just like that crap Audun mentions about all different types of nature spirits and breaking it down. Angles and demons are just elementals, nymphs and river horses are river spirits. |
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Mar 20 2005, 11:43 PM
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#57
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Karma Police Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 1,358 Joined: 22-July 04 From: Gothenburg, SE Member No.: 6,505 |
Fine. But these things should be clearly stated and handled in the same way as shamanic traditions, and the catholic church should be a major player when it comes to things magical. It has so much potential to be totally menacing in fiction.
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Mar 20 2005, 11:47 PM
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#58
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Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
I thought Threats 2 and SoE did a pretty good job brinning the RCC up to, if not major, at least player status with great potential for more. |
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Mar 21 2005, 12:21 AM
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#59
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Karma Police Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 1,358 Joined: 22-July 04 From: Gothenburg, SE Member No.: 6,505 |
Yes they did. Now let´s see that being developed in the new edition. Giving world religions a place in the core magic system. Let´s take this discussion to the new thread I created, instead of taking this one of track.
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 Mar 21 2005, 12:38 PM
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#60
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 401 Joined: 7-June 02 From: Living with the straw sheep. Member No.: 2,850 |
[Snip Crimsondudestuff]
The interesting thing about SR is, if you go into the nitty gritty of its cosmology etc...it does assume something like the existence of the soul... Consciousness, according to SR is a weird phenomenon. IE: You can have an AI, such as Deus, whose intelligence and self awareness is entirely dependent upon physical/informational processes in the physical world. In theory, you could dissect Deus' code and work out how he works. But then, you have spirits, some of which are clearly intelligent and self-aware (Free Spirits come to mind). They don't have any "physical" component that fits with our classical understanding of the physical universe. So their consciousness is somehow dependent upon phenomena that we can't describe. And then you have us. If someone damages your brain too much, you die. So, we need to have a brain to live -> therefore also, we need the brain to be self-aware etc. This is supported by SR's cyberware (which, if you think about it, requires a great deal of understanding about how the brain, and indeed the mind work - especially in the case of stuff like psychoactive IC...). But if someone uses a spell (or a critter power) to turn me into a statue, or a rock, or a tree, or a tiny little pebble, I still don't die. Or become brain-damaged. Indeed, I might not even lose consciousness, depending upon the effect of the power in question. So, human consciousness and awareness isn't as dependent upon our physical bodies as it appears to be. OR spells that alter the human body do an awful lot of very, very complex things... And Astral projection raises similar questions... I think about this stuff too much... [Edit]Deus and other AIs' intelligence/awareness might not, in fact, be independent of astral phenomena. I'm just operating on the assumption that it is because the separation of the spiritual and the technological is a kind of "SR Trope".[/Edit] This post has been edited by Demosthenes: Mar 21 2005, 01:15 PM |
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| Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_* |
Mar 21 2005, 07:57 PM
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#61
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Guests |
Well, here's my personal thought and thoughts as it relates to SR:
There is no soul. As for Alice, the explanation for her existence can be explained rationally, as a couple of my co-gamers went through a great deal of work to explain when an Otaku was killed, but still "lived." and is now roaming around the Matrix. The human brain is a wonderful machine, and the fact that Otaku brains can be rewired to interact directly with the Matrix belies the strength of the brain and its parallel processing abilities. In the case of said Otaku, and Alice, what is floating around the Matrix is not the real person. They're dead. What is floating around the Matrix is a collection of autonomous parallel processes (like the Network, but just in the Matrix) and data files which contain the memories of Alice along with the extensive psychological profile and learning that Mirage did. What Alice is, simply put, is an idealized abstraction of what these processes and data packets have infered what her thoughts and actions would be--which aren't that limited given that the parameters of her traits and motivations rest mainly around a single purpose: Revenge. If Alice was more "real" then perhaps she would also be involved in other projects, from escaping (The idea of The Network is not exactly born of Deus' great genius) to contacting Kyle, to actually giving a damn about events in the Matrix beyond Wonderland. The processes and memory bits which serve as the only existence of Alice are most effective wen distributed over multiple hosts running operations parallel in order to most effectively replicate the thought processes of a human or an AI, and is the same way Deus works in the Network, only instead of purely machine hosts he is using their own brains to facilitate the processing of his code. But in both cases, all they are is information. There is nothing mystical or magical or spiritual to them. They have achieved critical mass as to the sheer amount of processing power they have harnessed to be capable of intuitive learning, but they are nothing more. Alice, in fact, probably only seems as human as she does because, like I said, there would be an extensive psychological and background investigation material on her for her databases to pull from and make logical, and eventually intuitive, suppositions about her behavior. She may even think she's human, but I cannot accept for a second that she is anything more than information packets and processor cycles. |
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Mar 21 2005, 08:52 PM
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#62
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
ah, since when? since when is that so, and since when do all--or even most--hermetics agree that it's so, even if it is so? science may not yet be able to explain every aspect of magic, but that doesn't mean it won't ever be able to. i'm not arguing that the shamans are right and the hermetics are wrong. i'm saying that nobody knows who's right and who's wrong--or if there even is a right or wrong answer to this particular question. |
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Mar 21 2005, 10:42 PM
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#63
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The King In Yellow Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,922 Joined: 26-February 05 From: JWD Member No.: 7,121 |
Period? This isn't in-character. And besides, hermetic might say they don't know how Magic, in-depth, works, all right. But that doesn't invalidate scientific approach. The whole point of scientific approach is to learn how something works, not know how it works in advance. Just because hermetics don't know now, doesn't mean they won't in the future.
The beauty of Shadowrun's magic system is that there is no definite "right" about it. After all, Magic has been in the world for what, 50 years? 60 by the time SR4 will take place? That's not a whole lot of time to find out the ins and outs of Magic, especially if it graces humanity with new and even more bizarre phenomena every few years. Neither shamen nor hermetics can rightfully claim they know it all. Magic, in SR, is a strange, unpredictable beast. Possibly, the only creatures in that world who really have an idea of how it works are Greats. But even they have repeatedly been surprised by certain things occurring. and they had, what, 25.000 years time to in-depth study magic? Not to mention are living, breathing it, sustaining on it, like humans and most non-awakened life need oxygen ... If that'd change, if Street Magic would, once and for all, confirm either approach, emotional or cognitive, as "right", it'd be the death of a very, very important aspect of the Shadowrun universe. |
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Mar 21 2005, 10:49 PM
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#64
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,032 Joined: 6-August 04 Member No.: 6,543 |
The whole shaman vrs hermetic thing is a lot like the street sam vrs the adept.
What I mean by that is, that the more "western" point of views are being downplayed. If you believe in science, and not blind faith in magic, you are just going to come up short in the long run. There are many cases of shamans going all crazy and doing huge magics, but when has there been anything like say the GGD done by hematics? |
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| Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_* |
Mar 21 2005, 11:47 PM
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#65
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Guests |
Except that mechanically it's uniform and very predictable.
When has there been a need? Moreover, who said that all the magicians in the GGD were shamans? |
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Mar 21 2005, 11:48 PM
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#66
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
can somebody confirm or disprove that the GGD involved only shamans? it's not like every Awakened person in the NAN would have been a shaman.
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Mar 21 2005, 11:50 PM
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#67
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Beetle Eater Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,797 Joined: 3-June 02 From: Oblivion City Member No.: 2,826 |
...Kilimanjaro I certainly don't think shaman or hermetics have it more right, but that fact that it doesn't work every single time in the exact same situation should indicate a certain... finesse to magic. |
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| Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_* |
Mar 21 2005, 11:44 PM
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#68
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Guests |
The Grimoire has a notation about how Arthur White Eagle might have participated in the GGD, and he's a mage. AFAIK, there's no proof either way.
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Mar 21 2005, 11:44 PM
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#69
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
i was going to post that, but as i recall, Kilimanjaro was not a hermetic-only event. as a matter of fact, i recall it saying something about importing an entire tribe of shamans from somewhere. though that could be the cough medicine, or the screaming, flying weasles that come with the cough medicine.
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Mar 22 2005, 12:00 AM
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#70
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The King In Yellow Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,922 Joined: 26-February 05 From: JWD Member No.: 7,121 |
Why are you going to come up short in the long run? Because you happen to know what you're doing, unlike shamen, who did some crazy shit that, forty years onwards, a Great had to sacrifice himself and do all kinds of crazy stunts just to clean up the mess they left behind? Because hermetics don't do a mighty, bridge-building, ritual every time you feel a sudden urge to? Besides, the shamen didn't even figure out the ritual for themselves. That half horror bastard child of Aina Dupree taught them the ins and outs of great-ghost-dancing, without notifying them of the detrimental byeffects, naturally. It wasn't intuition, deeper connection with magic, or some other innate superiority of shamen that made GGD possibe, it was a rather malicious entity. And possibly he chose shamen precisely because they wouldn't wonder how the mojo worked, but only be overjoyed that it did. |
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Mar 22 2005, 03:04 PM
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#71
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 360 Joined: 18-March 02 From: Plymouth UK. Member No.: 2,408 |
Meanwhile back on subject.
I've got too many plausible theorys as to why the matrix would crash. This is my fav: The crash virus in its new AI form pretends to be the somthing called the dissonance in the same way that deus pretended to be the resonance. Crash Virus plus pissed off otaku equals dead matrix. On a side note read the brief stuff on the new matrix again. Screams the network on a larger scale to me. :eek: |
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Mar 24 2005, 06:24 PM
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#72
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,978 Joined: 26-February 02 From: New Jersey, USA Member No.: 500 |
Yeah, but the problem is, the way it was done looks like all of the nasty anti-Catholic bigotry of the past centuries made truth. I mean, damn. The NSoJ, the Templars...feels like every single canard pulled out against "Papists" over the century. |
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Mar 24 2005, 06:45 PM
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#73
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 369 Joined: 1-September 03 From: New York State Member No.: 5,563 |
To continue off topic. Do we consider the events of the novels to be cannon? If so then there have been two GGD. In the 3rd SR novel published Sam what's his name arranges a GGD with the help of Howling Coyote.
Thanos |
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Mar 24 2005, 07:01 PM
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#74
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
i think that's part of the whole 'dark future' thing, penta. you can't have a massive, well-funded, entrenched, long-standing organization that's good without seriously cramping your dystopian style.
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Mar 24 2005, 07:28 PM
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#75
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
And get this : The only a time a great dragon open his maw to talk about magic, he'll say that all kinds of magic are essentially the same. I'm guessing the Great Dragons read the SR magic mechanics. That's the secret to their power ; they know the rules of the game! ;) |
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