Ounía

Rayne (Alýr)

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Ounía

« on: 29 March 2006, 23:18:00 »

I'm requesting any major suggestions/problems be held off for now. I like to deal with commentors one at a time and I'd like to discuss some of the issues Silfer brought up with him and perhaps make some significant edits before I move on to the next critic. Keep those suggestions in mind, though. I will address them one critic at a time (I don't really have the time to deal with them all at once).

Dear Ava, she's done it again! She's come up with some rubbish to confuse you all with--an entry on ounia!

I'm not quite done with it--I have one more section I'd like to put in there and a little more to add to the introduction, but you can take a gander at it if you like.

EDIT: Ok, it's done, I suppose. I actually added two more sections when I discovered the extra bit I was adding on to the introduction was getting very big and theoretical. I still add some basic stuff to the intro, though. In any case, here she is, ready for the pickin'

Ounía

An oún (plural ounía), along with xeuá links, compose everything in the universe. An oún can be defined as a single unit of which all bodies consist, and which imposes its properties in degree based on the connections it maintains with surrounding units and in quality by the element with which it is identified: earth, water, wind, or fire. More simply, an oún is a unit with the capability of producing properties that effect the cár’áll in which it is contained. 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. A mage manipulates these interactions in conducting spell, but they also exist independently in nature.

Every oún has two types of effects they can create given active links: physical and spiritual. Physical effects are those that alter the physical qualities of a cár’áll, be it motion or temperature. Spiritual effects can only affect something with an individual and discernable will or spirit, namely something alive. A rock cannot be made to be happy or sad just as making someone physically heavier does not directly cause a spiritual or emotional change.

The Elements
There are four elements: wind, water, earth, and fie. An oún will belong to one of these qualities or elements, and that element defines the properties and qualities of that oún. The nature of properties and qualities imposed by the elements through the oún are defined, in part, through the explanation of that element: wind is wind and earth is earth, while water is wind trying to be earth and fire is earth trying to be wind. Wind and earth are stable in terms of their given realms of influence, their metaphysical place, while water and fire, extensions of wind and earth, suffer perennial instability because of their desires—the properties and qualities are defined in one part from their base element (fire with earth and water with wind), and in second part from the expression of these desires for the opposing element (fire for wind and water for earth).

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. The instability of these elements also contributes to their relative chaotic/random properties (fire more than water because of the permanence of earth that water tried to manifest). This instability, however, is eternal, and fire will never become wind just as water will never become earth. It is important to mention the permanence of these states.

Properties and Qualities
Properties and qualities are two distinguishable part of any oún. The property of an oún can be described as the physical or spiritual effects an oún imposes on its cár’áll that requires an active (soór) link to be expressed. The qualities of an oún exist independent of the activity (soór) or inactivity (ahm) of the links connecting it. Qualities describe behaviors of an oún granted by its element and often imposed on the links of an oún by that oún. Heat is a property of fire, but the oún itself down not have the quality of heat—if it did, a cár’áll containing fire oún would have heat even if there were not active links connecting it. Temperature, be it initiated by fire or water, is not a quality. Meanwhile. 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. 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.

Qualities defined the natural tendencies of elements, but can be overcome based on the behavior of other elements to which an oún is connected. Fire, although light, can become actively connected to earth and stay close to the ground. Increasing the amount of active links does not necessarily increase a quality or make a quality more prominent. Fire actively connected to wind may cause lightning, which brings the fire oún back to the ground, but can also aid in the creation of tornados, which play on the chaotic property of this element.

Elemental Interdependence
Properties create interdependence between elements. For every property an element has, another element (usually the opposition element) has an equal and opposite property. For example, fire may have the property of heat, but water will have the property of cold, and although earth may have the property of solidity, wind has the property of movement. This means that the realms of all the elements overlap and interact.

Every element can control its “opposite property” to come degree. Fire can lessen heat to cool things down, just as earth can lessen stability and cause motion; however, the control is very limited. When a fire mage, for example, lessen the prominence of his element, he makes the links connecting fire oún go from soór to ahm. By the Conservation of Voice Principle, a cár’áll will necessarily maintain the same amount of soór and ahm contained within it. Thus, when the fire mage turns the links to ahm, links must replace what were ahm links. This includes links with water. However, because a fire mage can’t control water, or any of the other elements, he or she can’t regulate soór links to water to express coldness.

Although it isn’t common, there occasionally are times when two opposition elements both express opposition qualities in the same cár’áll. This is a very rare circumstance, because it not only requires the same amount of oún for each element, but the same amount of soór links connecting them. Collisions of properties are thus extremely rare. In this situation, however, there are two possible behaviors. All elements fight for dominance in any cár’áll --but the will keeps them balanced; however, more than dominance an element wants its properties expressed, so when neither element has its qualities expressed, it turns to expressing other qualities. For example, wind and earth are both expressing their particular property of motion and immobility but, because they both have the same amount influence over the cár’áll, don’t have their property expressed, they turn to other properties—perhaps lightness in the case of wind and solidity in the case of earth. Another less possible outcome is an impact of sorts, where the two qualities collide and the impact bumps soór links to other elements. This is extremely rare, and typically happens only between water and fire do to their chaotic or random properties.

Retention
Every oún is connected to all other oún through links, or xeuá. Many of these links or ahm, though, within the existence of any oún, these links may change, creating different effects and manifesting different properties. These various changes are imprinted on the oún itself, and provide a means to which, if one studies hard enough the imprints of soór and ahm linkage to that oún and is able to translate them, could reveal the past. This process may take hours or even days to uncover a single event from the past, with more difficulty arising from trying to translate the ancient past.

Although determining the past can be difficult, the future is even more so, but possible. For those who use Ximax magic to try to predict the future, the task is one that takes a great deal of time and effort, but they claim its possibly do to the “shadow imprints” on an oún—the are imprints xeuá have not yet made. The phenomenon is often described in this way: if you take a piece of parchment and draw a line on it in dark pen, it is easy to see—this is like a path through time and space an oún has followed. However, say it had not yet been followed. This would be like taking another strip of thin parchment and resting it on top of the first; now, you can no longer see the line. However, if you take both parchments and put them up to the light, you can vaguely distinguish the line through the parchment. This is the way in which the line can be read and translated. There are several margins of error, though, and often predictions are incorrect. Those who practice predicting the future through this means claim that the lines are often hard to see, and that sometimes it appears the line splits or goes a different direction, obscuring the real future.

Clerics of Seyella and Baveras’ Wills are far more adepts at telling the future, and often the past, than the mages and scholars of Ximax. No one is quite sure why this is, though many just claim that those who keep their focus purely in prediction will naturally be better skilled at it. At Ximax, telling the future and predicting the past are skills only some schools share. The archschools both have such programs, though xeuá mages tends to be better suited towards prediction of past and future than their ecuá counterparts. Wind mages have a great advantage, though, because the oún on which its path best imprints is wind, perhaps due to properties of clarity. Wind mages equal and sometimes surpass the skill at which the archschools can predict.

Morality
The oún is the link between the spiritual and the physical, linking and uniting both these principles into a single, elegant unit. Many human scholars stipulate that within oún exists the key to morality and defining the true measure of right and wrong if only we had the tools to extract this kind of information. Elven scholars, on the other had, believe the oún already emits this quality, and we can sense it if only we try. The true measure of right and wrong, they say, is not sealed away in part of an oún, but is the oún itself. This leads to many questions of how oún can be manipulated to evil ends if they’re truly “moral,” to which, though many humans have debated on the subjects, many elves claim that the morality of an oún is hindered by its allegiance to the necessity of some events imposed on them by the links which connect them.

No one will ever truly know if these ideas about morality in oún are correct, and they remain part of high magic theory and pure stipulation.

Edited by: Rayne Avalotus at: 3/30/06 6:18


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"There is much misjudgment in the world. Now, I knew you for a unicorn when I first saw you, and I know that I am your friend. Yet you take me for a clown, or a clod, or a betrayer, and so I must be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will vanish as soon as you are free, but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes. We are not always what we seem..." -Schmendrick the Magician, The Last Unicorn

Miraran Tehuriden

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #1 on: 30 March 2006, 09:19:00 »

*gasps* But.... but.... but.... it MAKES SENSE! *faints*

I applaud your skills *bows deeply*

-Words to Worlds-


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Avrah Kehabhra

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Rayne (Alýr)

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #2 on: 30 March 2006, 12:18:00 »

You may think it makes sense, Mira. Let's see what Mina and Silfer has to say. I discussed my proposals with Silfer and he seemed to agree, but we'll see how it all pans out.

::courtsies::


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Silfer Darkflare

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #3 on: 30 March 2006, 15:14:00 »

*fetches fencing suit and weapon, turns on bleeper

*
Comments in orange

Ounía

An oún (plural ounía), along with xeuá links, compose everything in the universe. An oún can be defined as a single unit of which all bodies consist, and which imposes its properties in degree based on the connections it maintains with surrounding units and in quality by the element with which it is identified: earth, water, wind, or fire. More simply, an oún is a unit with the capability of producing properties that effect the cár’áll in which it is contained. 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. A mage manipulates these interactions in conducting spell, but they also exist independently in nature.

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?

There are also two dimensions to properties: Not only do links affect them, but also the amount of ounia of an element.

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.

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".

Every oún has two types of effects they can create given active links: physical and spiritual. Physical effects are those that alter the physical qualities of a cár’áll, be it motion or temperature. Spiritual effects can only affect something with an individual and discernable will or spirit, namely something alive. A rock cannot be made to be happy or sad just as making someone physically heavier does not directly cause a spiritual or emotional change.

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.

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.

Thirdly, golems: They are nonliving, yet they have thoughts imprinted on them, from the caster. This also speaks for the above point.

The Elements
There are four elements: wind, water, earth, and fie. An oún will belong to one of these qualities qualities HERE confuses me or elements, and that element defines the properties and qualities of that oún. The nature of properties and qualities imposed by the elements through the oún are defined, in part, through the explanation of that element: wind is wind and earth is earth, while water is wind trying to be earth and fire is earth trying to be wind. Wind and earth are stable in terms of their given realms of influence, their metaphysical place, while water and fire, extensions of wind and earth, suffer perennial instability because of their desires—the properties and qualities are defined in one part from their base element (fire with earth and water with wind), and in second part from the expression of these desires for the opposing element (fire for wind and water for earth).

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.

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. The instability of these elements also contributes to their relative chaotic/random properties (fire more than water because of the permanence of earth that water tried to manifest). This instability, however, is eternal, and fire will never become wind just as water will never become earth. It is important to mention the permanence of these states.

Properties and Qualities
Properties and qualities are two distinguishable part of any oún. The property of an oún can be described as the physical or spiritual effects an oún imposes on its cár’áll that requires an active (soór) link to be expressed. The qualities of an oún exist independent of the activity (soór) or inactivity (ahm) of the links connecting it. Qualities describe behaviors of an oún granted by its element and often imposed on the links of an oún by that oún. Heat is a property of fire, but the oún itself down not have the quality of heat—if it did, a cár’áll containing fire oún would have heat even if there were not active links connecting it. Temperature, be it initiated by fire or water, is not a quality. Meanwhile. 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. 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.

Qualities defined the natural tendencies of elements, but can be overcome based on the behavior of other elements to which an oún is connected. Fire, although light, can become actively connected to earth and stay close to the ground. Increasing the amount of active links does not necessarily increase a quality or make a quality more prominent. Fire actively connected to wind may cause lightning, which brings the fire oún back to the ground, but can also aid in the creation of tornados, which play on the chaotic property of this element.

I am confused by this paragraph. Does fire have the quality of lightness or of heaviness? First, you say heaviness, then, "Fire, altho light [...]".

Also, fire/water light/heavy seems counterintuitive to me. Reasoning, please.

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.

Elemental Interdependence
Properties create interdependence between elements. For every property an element has, another element (usually the opposition element) has an equal and opposite property. For example, fire may have the property of heat, but water will have the property of cold, and although earth may have the property of solidity, wind has the property of movement. This means that the realms of all the elements overlap and interact.

Every element can control its “opposite property” to come degree. Fire can lessen heat to cool things down, just as earth can lessen stability and cause motion; however, the control is very limited. When a fire mage, for example, lessen the prominence of his element, he makes the links connecting fire oún go from soór to ahm. By the Conservation of Voice Principle, a cár’áll will necessarily maintain the same amount of soór and ahm contained within it. Thus, when the fire mage turns the links to ahm, links must replace what were ahm links. This includes links with water. However, because a fire mage can’t control water, or any of the other elements, he or she can’t regulate soór links to water to express coldness.

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.

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.

Although it isn’t common, there occasionally are times when two opposition elements both express opposition qualities in the same cár’áll. This is a very rare circumstance, because it not only requires the same amount of oún for each element, but the same amount of soór links connecting them. Collisions of properties are thus extremely rare. In this situation, however, there are two possible behaviors. All elements fight for dominance in any cár’áll --but the will keeps them balanced; however, more than dominance an element wants its properties expressed, so when neither element has its qualities expressed, it turns to expressing other qualities. For example, wind and earth are both expressing their particular property of motion and immobility but, because they both have the same amount influence over the cár’áll, don’t have their property expressed, they turn to other properties—perhaps lightness in the case of wind and solidity in the case of earth. Another less possible outcome is an impact of sorts, where the two qualities collide and the impact bumps soór links to other elements. This is extremely rare, and typically happens only between water and fire do to their chaotic or random properties.

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?

Retention
Every oún is connected to all other oún through links, or xeuá. Many of these links or ahm, though, within the existence of any oún, these links may change, creating different effects and manifesting different properties. These various changes are imprinted on the oún itself, and provide a means to which, if one studies hard enough the imprints of soór and ahm linkage to that oún and is able to translate them, could reveal the past. This process may take hours or even days to uncover a single event from the past, with more difficulty arising from trying to translate the ancient past.

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?

Although determining the past can be difficult, the future is even more so, but possible. For those who use Ximax magic to try to predict the future, the task is one that takes a great deal of time and effort, but they claim its possibly do to the “shadow imprints” on an oún—the are imprints xeuá have not yet made. The phenomenon is often described in this way: if you take a piece of parchment and draw a line on it in dark pen, it is easy to see—this is like a path through time and space an oún has followed. However, say it had not yet been followed. This would be like taking another strip of thin parchment and resting it on top of the first; now, you can no longer see the line. However, if you take both parchments and put them up to the light, you can vaguely distinguish the line through the parchment. This is the way in which the line can be read and translated. There are several margins of error, though, and often predictions are incorrect. Those who practice predicting the future through this means claim that the lines are often hard to see, and that sometimes it appears the line splits or goes a different direction, obscuring the real future.

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...

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?

Clerics of Seyella and Baveras’ Wills are far more adepts at telling the future, and often the past, than the mages and scholars of Ximax. No one is quite sure why this is, though many just claim that those who keep their focus purely in prediction will naturally be better skilled at it. At Ximax, telling the future and predicting the past are skills only some schools share. The archschools both have such programs, though xeuá mages tends to be better suited towards prediction of past and future than their ecuá counterparts. Wind mages have a great advantage, though, because the oún on which its path best imprints is wind, perhaps due to properties of clarity. Wind mages equal and sometimes surpass the skill at which the archschools can predict.

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?

Morality
The oún is the link between the spiritual and the physical, linking and uniting both these principles into a single, elegant unit. Many human scholars stipulate that within oún exists the key to morality and defining the true measure of right and wrong if only we had the tools to extract this kind of information. Elven scholars, on the other had, believe the oún already emits this quality, and we can sense it if only we try. The true measure of right and wrong, they say, is not sealed away in part of an oún, but is the oún itself. This leads to many questions of how oún can be manipulated to evil ends if they’re truly “moral,” to which, though many humans have debated on the subjects, many elves claim that the morality of an oún is hindered by its allegiance to the necessity of some events imposed on them by the links which connect them.

No one will ever truly know if these ideas about morality in oún are correct, and they remain part of high magic theory and pure stipulation.

Thank you for undertaking this, Rayne.


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Rayne (Alýr)

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #4 on: 30 March 2006, 23:15:00 »

Here we go!

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?

Nothing. The Xeua entry I'll have to redo, but links are always links--all links are essentially the same. One effect you do get, I guess, is more fire qualities expressed, but that's just because the amount of ounia is increases ("two" ounia as opposed to "one" oun.)

Quote:
There are also two dimensions to properties: Not only do links affect them, but also the amount of ounia of an element.

A basic yet necessary detail I'm adding in. Thanks.

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.

Are we sure that a rock as an object is not just the physical manfiestation of the effects of an oun? "Object" refers to the physical manifestation of a car'all, but not the spiritual. Can we say this, or does this assume too much? I need more than a rough distinction, and I think if we try, we can make one.

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".

Or we could continue to play on the Conservation of Voice principle and expand it a bit (maybe make a new name for it) to say that, when you remove oun from a given car'all, that car'all will seek to replace them from outside/external sources. So when you take away fire from a car'all, the car'all will grab oun from the outside--water, wind, earth, and maybe fire, though obviously not enough to replace what was lost. However, I do want to stress that it is still a percentage we're working with, sort of, because, of course, we don't really have a fixed amount. As for deciding the size of object, why not let the natural will decide? This is all something we'll need to discuss, of course.

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.

Can you provide some of these? And we have to take spiritual things a bit more creatively. There are probably a great deal more spiritual spells than we realize, because spiritual not only deals with emotions, but the various shades and degrees to which the mind can be manipulated.

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.

Then the spell effects living creatures, and not a place. Emitting sadness is not the ability of a place, but you can probably manipulate an area so that when a person walks into it, they experience a change in the composition of their car'all that would cause them to feel grief.

Quote:
Thirdly, golems: They are nonliving, yet they have thoughts imprinted on them, from the caster. This also speaks for the above point.

I'll concede on this point, but I don't like calling them thoughts so much as directions, and I wonder if thoughts and feelings can really be equated to the sort of programming golems would use. If we did want to equate the two, then how should we describe things like "golems" and he sort of animated non-living things conjured in necromancy? I want to draw a line somewhere.

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.

This doesn't make much sense. Are you saying ALL elements are either fire or water? I guess I'm not sure exactly what problems you have with my explanations.

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 [...]".

Should have said "lighter than earth." Fire is heavy enough to sink through wind and even water (when not bound to earth), but is not as heavy as earth.

Quote:
Also, fire/water light/heavy seems counterintuitive to me. Reasoning, please.

Ok, again, what we agreed on: fire and water will naturally be aligned to their base element although they desire the opposing one. This is the third time I've had to remind you.

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.

I don't understand. Pure fire is hot because it is soor-connected. However, if you put fire into a car'all and ahm it, then you're not going to get a hot car'all. Properties explain the effects of an oun on a car'all, while qualities describe the behavior of oun independent of car'all and the state of links. This is already explained in the entry. Please reread it and adjust your comment.

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.

I'm having trouble understanding this. 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.

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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.

... Ok... How does this relate?

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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?

It requires equal amounts of both ounia and soor because the effects have to be equal in order for a collision of properties to take place and those two outcomes to occur. This is already explained. Are you meaning to say that I should explain what happens when water tries to express coldness and fire tries to express heat, but the effects are unequal (i.e. fire has more power than water and so heat becomes the more dominent temperature)?

You don't get a hot object EXCEPT when fire dominates the car'all to a certain degree. Usually fire is not the only one expressing itself--earth and wind are, too. If enough of the soor links with fire, yet, and object will be very hot, but this isn't likely, especially in nature. Is this what you mean?

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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?

The number of links is always the same. The amount of ounia in the universe is fixed. These things don't change. All ounia are linked to every other oun. They can not be made because they already are, and they can never be broken, only made ahm. The terms "making" and "breaking" links only refer to the strengthening (soor) and lessening (ahm) the effects of the links.

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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...

This isn't a magical way of doing things. This is a practical way--an almost mathematical way to predict what will happen by the given percentages of how likely something is. This does not depend much on magic, it seems.

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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?

I know nothing of Krean magic, and to my knowledge, no more magical systems were suppose to be made... Hmm....

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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?

Or impossible to imprint. Keep in mind that things of the mind, including predictions, tend to fall into the wind category

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Thank you for undertaking this, Rayne.

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.


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Mina

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #5 on: 31 March 2006, 01:43:00 »

This will take a while.

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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.

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?

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?

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Heat, for example, is fire’s attempt to become more like wind, while cold is water trying to assume the solidity of earth.

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.

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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.

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*

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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.

This makes it seem that what you call qualities are the properties of the ounia (as opposed to the properties of the elements themselves). However, the fact that they have an effect on the car'all suggests otherwise.

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Another less possible outcome is an impact of sorts, where the two qualities collide and the impact bumps soór links to other elements.

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.

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.

Morality: This section confuses me too. What does being the link between the spiritual and physical have to do with morality?

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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.

I'd say you are both right and wrong, Silfer. A physical object is basically the manifestation of the physical properties of it's car'all, as I see it. A hypothetical pure physical form of an element would be the manifestation of all its physical properties, as I mentioned in the properties thread. Different mixtures of elements and properties will then create other substances. Location would play a part too, determining where the each property is manifested. So, a car'all is in a sense, the 'recipe' for an object, but it is essentially the object too. I see no difference here.

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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.

Hmm. I don't see so much of a problem here, especially if we go with Rayne's idea of each oun expressing one property at a time. I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into words, but we'll see. I suppose the 'physical', solid form of the wizard is mainly due to Earth ounia. The ounia of the other elements deal with things like heat and the like, so removing them wouldn't cause a change in size, I think. However, removing the Earth ounia from, say, the wizard's hand probably would remove his hand. Or at least its solidity, which basically has the same effect. It'd be more or less the same as turning all the links with Earth ounia in the hand ahm. So, I think I got a little off track there, but essentally, I think that size (in a Earth-dominant physical form, like a wizard) is determined by how Earth ounia (those actually causing solidity, anyway) are positioned, and how much there are.

But, in most cases, I don't see this happening anyway. A mage hardly ever has to use the ounia of his own car'all, unless they're altering their own car'all. Even if they have to, they can always make sure the ounia they're using aren't doing something important, I guess.

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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.

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?

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I know nothing of Krean magic, and to my knowledge, no more magical systems were suppose to be made... Hmm....

Heh, long story. But the system is pretty interesting. You should probably take a look, if you have the time.

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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.

I think it'd be good if all three of us could find some time to sit down and have a good discussion. It's going to be a little hard to arrange though, because certain RL stuff is forcing me to frequently be absent for days at a time, and often pretty tired when I get back. Still, if you guys are interested, I'm sure we could find a suitable date and time.


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Silfer Darkflare

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #6 on: 31 March 2006, 12:14:00 »

Rayne:

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.

Can you provide some of these? And we have to take spiritual things a bit more creatively. There are probably a great deal more spiritual spells than we realize, because spiritual not only deals with emotions, but the various shades and degrees to which the mind can be manipulated.

Spiritual rep. of sphere 2 in Wind:
e) Equate Cár'áll - Silences all magic by restoring the "natural" cár'áll.
f) Absorb Magic - Draws magical power away from another mage.

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.

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.
This doesn't make much sense. Are you saying ALL elements are either fire or water? I guess I'm not sure exactly what problems you have with my explanations.

Erm... Ill have to think about, or else scrap that. Tried to make sense of it, failed. Leave it for now.

Also, fire/water light/heavy seems counterintuitive to me. Reasoning, please.

Ok, again, what we agreed on: fire and water will naturally be aligned to their base element although they desire the opposing one. This is the third time I've had to remind you.

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."

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.

I don't understand. Pure fire is hot because it is soor-connected. However, if you put fire into a car'all and ahm it, then you're not going to get a hot car'all. Properties explain the effects of an oun on a car'all, while qualities describe the behavior of oun independent of car'all and the state of links. This is already explained in the entry. Please reread it and adjust your comment.

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)

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.

I'm having trouble understanding this. 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.

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.

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?
It requires equal amounts of both ounia and soor because the effects have to be equal in order for a collision of properties to take place and those two outcomes to occur. This is already explained. Are you meaning to say that I should explain what happens when water tries to express coldness and fire tries to express heat, but the effects are unequal (i.e. fire has more power than water and so heat becomes the more dominent temperature)?

You don't get a hot object EXCEPT when fire dominates the car'all to a certain degree. Usually fire is not the only one expressing itself--earth and wind are, too. If enough of the soor links with fire, yet, and object will be very hot, but this isn't likely, especially in nature. Is this what you mean?

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.)

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?

Krean magic: It rests on non-linear time. There, everything exists at once, and our world is the most probable event to happen - the other, less probable ones, exist but do not manifest.

Magic 101, last paragraph

Krean magic final draft(complete text, heavy on the mind)

Mina: On car'all vs object: Arti has numerious times bashed us for equalling object and the car'all of object, which is why I bring it up. And we do not get shrinking wizards... but my point is that we need not so much an $philosophical_explanation as an $practical_consequences of messing with car'all and what impacts it has on the object - to avoid shrinking wizards.

And while solidity of wizard would be earth, size would not - why? A glob of air is wind, trace amounts of earth only, but it has size too.


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Mina

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #7 on: 31 March 2006, 14:16:00 »

The size of a glob of air would be dependent on the amount of Wind ounia in it, wouldn't it?

I wasn't saying that the car'all of an object is equal to the object, just that making the distinction doesn't really change much. Consider the situation where all the links in a car'all are turned ahm via ecua magic. The car'all is effectively destroyed, and IMO, what you would see is the object simply ceasing to exist (the effects caused by new links being formed because of the conservation of voice should be close to negligible, I think).


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Rayne (Alýr)

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #8 on: 01 April 2006, 12:55:00 »

Instead of replying individually to both of you (I suppose Mina posting comments despite my notice is all right), I will instead try to pull out the issues you both are finding, and we can all discuss them next time we have the time.

1. What causes the properties of an oun to be expressed? What causes the properties to be expressed in the degree they are?

2. Where do we draw a line between the suggestion of a physical property and a unified concept of object?

3. How do we distinquish between properties and qualities? What is the significance of this separation?

4. Can an oun express more than one property at a time?

5. What are the effects of opposing elements manifesting opposite effects in equal measure?

6. Should we introduce "degrees" or soor and ahm?

Anyone want to add?

Krean magic is interesting. It's not that difficult to understand--the problem is that its message is deeply obscured by metaphor and through unnecessarily complicated syntax, both of which I assume are actually done for the aim of obscuring the text to, indeed, make it seem so. Maybe when I get the chance, I'll comment on these things: really, the misuse of metaphor and explanation in some parts, and the use of unnecessary syntax, actually tarnished the beauty of the concept itself and shadows the intelligence of its design, which is really a shame.

As far as how Krean magic works--it doesn't really allow for the concept of pre-defined future because future is essetially a choice defined by how much probability a mage wants to put into future events. Perhaps a mage would be able to defined different event continuums, but those, as you know, are apt to change. It's very similar to the views of Leibniz, sort of, only you have more freedom to take part in other possible futures. I could go on about this, but I won't.


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Silfer Darkflare

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #9 on: 01 April 2006, 13:53:00 »

Well, the future is not predefined here either - I dragged in Krean magic because there, everything exists at once and the line in your metaphor DOES exist, see my comment above. But it was a randomness thingy.


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Re: Ounía

« Reply #10 on: 03 April 2006, 17:16:00 »

Huh, I thought what you didn't want was suggestions for new stuff, not comments.


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Rayne (Alýr)

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #11 on: 04 April 2006, 09:54:00 »

Ok, I know I've been a little non-existent around the boards (I had to take some time for myself this weekend). And since I'll probably be rather busy this week, it seems as though the group-magic-discussion isn't going to work for now, so I'll try to elucidate some things now.

@Mina:

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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?

The xeua links ARE what makes an oun express their properties, but only soor xeua can do this. This is already explained.

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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?

Ounia can't express properties by themselves. This is already explained (the expression of properties requires soor-linking). The amount of ounia also determines the degree of property manifestation: "The amount of oúnia also influences a cár’áll, but only if these oúnia are soór linked." This is already in the entry. Maybe you're looking at soor-linking and amount of ounia as two mutually exlusive ways in which to effect if or how much of a property is expressed. This is not the case. They BOTH influence the how much of a property is expressed in a given car'all.

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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.

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?

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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*

How we determine what is a property and what is a quality is if the expression requires a soor-link. Properties describe but is expressed while quality refers to the behavior. Originally, I came up with this split between properties and qualities to 1) some how describe the ways a oun behaves in a car'all. The ida of qualities keeps different oun of different elements identifiable even if they weren't soor-linked, so magi could tell them apart. 2) They also provided a workable solution to the problem of ahm-linked ounia in a car'all, and the way you could separate them from ahm-linked ounia in the surrounding enviroment. If the oun wasn't connected intimately enough with the car'all, then its qualities wouldn't become imposed on that car'all. Finally, 3) having qualities allows us to explain how something like wind, which is naturally in motion, can be perceived (earth). Earth is the element of perceptability, and you can feel wind. By allowing perceptability to be a quality, we can explain why we feel wind even when it seems to be in its purest state. If we throw out qualities prematurely, we will have to find a viable solution to these problems.

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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.

I'll try to re-word this.

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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.

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.

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Morality: This section confuses me too. What does being the link between the spiritual and physical have to do with morality?

This requires more philosophy than I care to get into right now. If you want to get ahead on it, you should go back to the Greek philosophers, specifically Plato and Aristotle, you came up with the logos-pathos-ethos trichotomy, where logos refers to logic, pathos to emotion, and ethos to ethics. Logos was considered the best because emotion was often superficial and apt to change and ethos couldn't be quantified. However, with the oun, we have a particle that is both physical (logos) and spiritual (pathos) and by the combination of the two (the application of the logos of the pathos) you get ehtics (ethos). That's sort of the jist of it.

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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?

Yes

Silfer:

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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.

I'm still uncertain about allowing spiritual spells to effect something that has no spirit, but I'm willing to give up my position if you can find a good means of explaining the difference between the two.

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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."

Ok. I see how you want this explained. I thought I had made the separation between heaviness being a quality of fire, not a property, clear, but I guess not. I will try to elucidate this in my next draft.

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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)

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.

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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.

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.

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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.)

It's a possibility, I suppose. What does Mina think?

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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?

I don't understand why you need to know degrees of ahmness. They're ahm, so they don't even effect a car'all. They are separated. The problem we do have is separating the ahm outside the car'all and the ahm inside it, which was what qualities were supposed to do. However, my first idea was to make some degrees of ahm and soor--one intermediate stage that, instead of being voiced or unvoiced, was whispering. The problem with this is that we need to look at the Conversation of Voice Principle again and see how it would work with all of this.


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Silfer Darkflare

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #12 on: 04 April 2006, 14:18:00 »

Rayne: Everything seems to be prograssing fine here.

Golems: I am perfectly fine with letting you loose on them - as long as we are a) able to "program" them and b)Have an explanation for it. Where we put it (spiritual/physical) is not very important.

Do you by chance confuse spirit and thought? If we tie spirit to physical life, we may get problems. I would put spirit as a "thing", not physical, but something transferrable, among other things. But that is where we disagree, with our different backgrounds.

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.

Yes, all I am asking is a list - I understand your idea quite well, I believe - and I agree with it. My point is, again, that the only way to determine if something needs a soor link to be expressed, is to try, by experiment. The problem, we don't have ounia on terra - thus we need a list. And yeah, i made a mistake. Oops.

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.

Read my writing more carefully.

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.

- It is poorly worded, perhaps. My point is, without ANY intervention. If you push a feather, you add soor links, yet the feather does not become lighter nor less visible - because the links keep expressing motion - on the car'all level, the transfer only activates motion.

I do see that the above is wobbly. Hm... if we instead say one oun - one property, as you suggested, what then? Well, it does work better because it IS and should be the ounia who speak, not the links. So I agree with you on that point. However, my point about randomness still stands. The question behind is this: What decides which property an oun will express? With magic it is fine, the mage does, and if NOTHING decides, it is random. But what if you push the feather with your hand, what makes the ounia in the feather express motion, and not invisibility? (Unless we transfer ounia with that push, but that makes less sence)

I need to know degrees of ahmness because you say:
Mage can read the history of something by examining the links it has, as links never vanish, they turn ahm.

But, for that to work, a mage must be able to somehow know how old an ahm link is, or, at least, which ahm links became ahm first and which became ahm later - else he won't find any knowledge about the history of the object, if all ahm links are identical.


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Mina

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Re: Ounía

« Reply #13 on: 04 April 2006, 16:02:00 »

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The xeua links ARE what makes an oun express their properties, but only soor xeua can do this. This is already explained.

Uhm, not quite the sort of explanation I wanted, I'm afraid. Lets see if I can phrase it better. We know that soor xeua links are necessary for an oun's properties to be expressed. What I want to know is why that is so, and how it works. My idea was that the xeua links express the properties for the oun. You seem to prefer the idea that ounia express the properties themselves. However, in that case, it should be explained why having soor links causes 'turns on' the properties in an oun, and having ahm links does the opposite.

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?

I didn't miss it; I just don't understand why it is so. Why does trying to be more like Wind cause heat, for example? Wind isn't by itself hot. The term 'voice' is also slightly confusing to me. What is its actual definition?

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.

It seems to me though, that if this was the case, ounia have to actually exist. I thought that we weren't supposed to have anything that actually proves any one magic system to be the 'right' one?