-Words to Worlds-
Quote:One question that arises from this: What is the difference between links fire to fire in a car'all, versus links fire to other ounia?
Quote:There are also two dimensions to properties: Not only do links affect them, but also the amount of ounia of an element.
Quote:Lastly, I would like to clearer see the fact that a car'all does not equal the object it belongs to. Objects, thus, do not consist of ounia - car'allia do. This is a fuzzy distinction, I know. Perhaps look at car'all as a recipe for an object, consisting of ounia. This makes the object manifest in our reality, but does not equal it.
Quote:One thing we could postulate is that it is the percentage of an element that matters, not the amount - thus we know why we don't get shrinking wizards when they put parts of their car'all somewhere else. However, that leaves open what decides the size of an object in our reality.Another thing one could do, is say that change in a car'all does not facilitate an immediate change in the object - as it is a recipe, the effects take time to manifest. This also takes care of the shrinkign wizards, who eats and refills his car'all. Question then is why some effects manifest "immediatly".
Quote:I see the logic in this. However, we have before used the spiritual side when dealing with magic effects, manipulations of car'all - see spell examples in Wind and Water. Should we perhaps keep that - else spiritual side becomes so small.
Quote:Another thing: Shouldn't it be possible to spiritually change a car'all, creating an imprint on it, even if it is nonliving? Say, enchant an area so that it radiates grief? The area itself isn't sad, but those who can receive emotion would be affected.
Quote:Thirdly, golems: They are nonliving, yet they have thoughts imprinted on them, from the caster. This also speaks for the above point.
Quote:Do not earth and wind also seek to become eachother? WHich is why we get fire and water... but that brings me close to making ounia be able to change elements... I don't want to go there.
Quote:I am confused by this paragraph. Does fire have the quality of lightness or of heaviness? First, you say heaviness, then, "Fire, altho light [...]".
Quote:Also, fire/water light/heavy seems counterintuitive to me. Reasoning, please.
Quote:Last thing: We need to define the qualities, an exhaustive list - because otherwise I can just as easily let fire have the quality of heat, as pure fire IS hot, by the same logic as pure earth IS solid. This also speaks for maybe scrapping the qualities all together, if the borders are that blurry.
Quote:By default (without mage's intervention), would not soor links transfered to an element cause all properties to be expressed about equally? (Assuming what a soor link causes expressed is random, and equal chance for any property to get it, and sufficient links to make the law of large numbers) Thus, when a fire mage does what is described above, some of the water's links would express coldness, and in near equal amount with every other property expressed.
Quote:Considering the blurry borders between car'allia, and Conservation of voice, it seems to follow that the amount of soor/ahm in the universe is equal.
Quote:Why does this require equal amounts of both ounia and soor? If water has less soor and ounia contra fire, it STILL does not get to express coldness if fire expresses heat. Would it then not similarly turn to something else, and would that not cause a VERY hot object? (As fire is the only one speaking about temperature) And how do we avoid that problem?
Quote:This feeds on the principle that once a link is forged, it never dies, it is ahm and stays there - Magic in caelereth entry. However, that gives us problems - is the number of links constantly increasing, then? If not, how are new links made? And if they can be broken, why does Conservation of voice hold?
Quote:Another way to predict the future would be to look at what is there, and what is likely to happen and what isn't. If there is a big fire with lots of materil to burn, it won't die UNLESS something happens, an intervention - a bucket of water, say. Then, by looking at the water nearby, we could say something about how likely that is...
Quote:I don't get your analogy with the paper - it would hold IF we can assume the line "has been made" - else it's not obscured, it isn't there at all. Do you know of Coren's Krean magic, Rayne, and the "everything exists at once" idea? And could that be drawn here?
Quote:It imprints best because Wind is the least solid - but earth is the most stable and unchanging, so harder to imprint but easier to read, no?
Quote:Thank you for undertaking this, Rayne.
Quote: The links connecting it to surrounding oúnia determine to what degree these properties are manifested in the cár’áll: if a oún is connected by soór, or active xeuá links, the property will be expressed, and if it’s connected by ahm links, or inactive xeuá links, they won’t be. The amount of oúnia also influences a cár’áll, but only if these oúnia are soór linked.
Quote:Heat, for example, is fire’s attempt to become more like wind, while cold is water trying to assume the solidity of earth.
Quote:The solidity of earth, while a property, is also a quality. Earth oún generally resist changing state, and impose the quality of stability on the links connected to it to make changes more difficult.
Quote:Heaviness is a quality of fire oún which is not a property and does not necessary effect the links connecting it, but which causes the oun to generally stay close to the earth. Lightness, similarly, is a quality of water that keeps it suspended in wind.
Quote:Another less possible outcome is an impact of sorts, where the two qualities collide and the impact bumps soór links to other elements.
Quote:One thing we could postulate is that it is the percentage of an element that matters, not the amount - thus we know why we don't get shrinking wizards when they put parts of their car'all somewhere else. However, that leaves open what decides the size of an object in our reality.
Quote:Oun only express one property at a time. In the case of fire, you have many oun all expressing different properties, but each individual oun is only expressing one property. To be honest, I haven't fleshed out what determines what property is expressed, and I think it is sufficient to say that it is something of a mystery, that natural will determines what property is expressed and that's really all we can say.
Quote: I know nothing of Krean magic, and to my knowledge, no more magical systems were suppose to be made... Hmm....
Quote:It's a tought job, but someone's got to do it. There are a lot of good points you brought up that we should definitely put on the agenda for next time we talk. I probably won't be free until Friday, though. However, I'd rather talk about them online rather than trying to discuss all these points simultaneously here.
Quote:Why would the properties only be manifested if there are soor links connecting to the ounia, if the xeua links are not what actually makes manifest the properties, as I suggested?
Quote:On the other hand, if ounia are able to express properties by themselves, shouldn't the amount of ounia present have an effect, regardless of the amount of soor-linking? I supposed this is explained to some extent when you separated what we previously called properties into properties and qualities. However, how do we determine what are qualities and what are properties?
Quote:I think the idea requires more explanation. Why does attempting to be like Wind result in Fire's properties? Why does attempting to be like Earth cause Water to have those properties? I guess this concept of 'voice' you mentioned has something to do with it, but I don't understand what it's all about. The only thing I could find about 'voice' is the mention of the Conservation of Voice in the Xeua entry, which didn't really explain anything.
Quote:Like I said, how do we determine what are properties and what are qualities? Also, why are some things both properties and qualities? *is confused*
Quote:Perhaps there could be a better choice of words here, since this invokes the image of there being a literal collision, which I gather is not quite the case. I think you could describe it as the attempt by a pair of soor-linked ounia to express directly opposing properties causing the link to become unstable and turn to ahm. The law of conservation of voice then takes effect, causing another soor link to form elsewhere.
Quote:Retention: This whole section is quite confusing to me. How does the imprinting thing work? It sounds as if each oun keeps a log of all the linking that it has gone through in the past (and will go through in the future), which can then be 'read' by a mage. This seems very odd though.
Quote:Morality: This section confuses me too. What does being the link between the spiritual and physical have to do with morality?
Quote:So, just to clarify, each oun can express all the properties of its element, but only one at a time, right? And a mage can determine which property is expressed?
Quote:That was what I was referring to. They are technically physical effects - we could say that - however, even manipulation of emotion is "physical" on the car'all level. Therefore my writing that we should maybe keep these spells in Spiritual side.As for golems - I am fine with calling it something other than thoughts - my point was that it falls into spiritual representation, and deals with something nonliving.
Quote:In that case, it is Earth who should be heavy, fire less heavy but heavier than water, etc. Else we get this logical pearl: "Fire is heavy because it is close to earth, yet it is not earth who has the property of heaviness, it is fire."
Quote:I understand what you mean quite well, I think. The "problem" is that we get this logical thingy:"Solidity is a quality because you don't need links <...>. Why don't you need links? Because it is a quality. " That is circular logic, which resolves to "solidity is a quality of earth and thus such and such because we have defined it that way". That is fine - but then we need to make an exhaustive list of qualities, because there is no procedure for deciding whether something is a quality or not - due to the circular logic. If you don't get it, ask yourself "Is Heavyness a quality?" "Why?" "Because you need a soor link." "Why?" "Because it is a property"... Ad infinitum. If we make no such list, what is a quality will remain a knowledge granted only to those who have spoken with Rayne. (Or someone who spoke to her)
Quote:I have to disagree on one oun-one property. It is one link-one property. My point was an utterly practical one: If you lessen fire in a car'all, and the only other thing there is water, soor goes from fire to water. Question: Which properties of water would activate? Answer: All of them, roughly in equal measure. Why? Because it seems natural that without interventions (mage control/whatever) the distribution is random, and that's how random distributions behave.
Quote:Well, we postulate that if properties collide, the ounia that are colliding will both turn to expressing other properties instead. Then I ask - if water tries to express coldness, but there is too much fire, would that water not instead turn to expressing something else, rather than "modify" the fire? (On second thought, we could just as well say that water DOES get to express coldness, which is why the object does not become superhot, but hotter.)
Quote:On telling the past: If it is to be possible, we will need degrees of ahm-ness, or at least some way of discerning which link became ahm when - else there is no difference between all the ahm links.Another thing speaking for degrees of link strength is the Magic entry, saying that "if you move a bush from the ground to a nearby place, the link bush-ground still persists, it is just weaker, but not so weak as if you would move it to another continent" - or something to that extent. If links are binary (soor/ahm), we get problems. And besides, we have been stepping so close to degrees of strength now a while, that we might just as wqell face the music. What do you think?
Quote:Oops! You've made an error here. "Heaviness is a quality" "Why?" "Because it DOES NOT need a soor link." "Why" "Because it is an explanation concerning the behavior of a oun, not the properties it expresses." However, we can make a list if you like. If you think it's too difficult now (you didn't seem to think it was too far-out when we were discussing it over IM), then we can try to replace it, though I suggest you look at the comments I gave to Mina above.
Quote:By this token, if something is light, such as a feather, it will also be in constant motion and it may even be invisible. You can't make the properties random, because it would mean that half the feathers out there would be in constant motion or invisible as much as they were light, or not more so. You can' apply randomness in this way. It simply isn't consistent with the way the world is.
Quote:Question: Which properties of water would activate? Answer: All of them, roughly in equal measure. Why? Because it seems natural that without interventions (mage control/whatever) the distribution is random, and that's how random distributions behave.
Quote:The xeua links ARE what makes an oun express their properties, but only soor xeua can do this. This is already explained.
Quote:This is already explained in the entry: "It can be said metaphorically that the ideas of wind and earth are identical to their voices, while the ideas of fire and water are not, and what is “voiced” by these elements are in fact attempts to express their desires. Heat, for example, is fire’s attempt to become more like wind, while cold is water trying to assume the solidity of earth." Did you miss it?
Quote:You've got it right. Of course, it's not literal, because an oun is not a completely material thing, but for the most part, you've got it right.