From: malloy@nprdc.navy.mil (Sean Malloy)
Subject: Re: Axiom mania!
X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
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Organization: University of North Texas
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Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 14:45:46 GMT

On Apr 8, 10:26am, marcogan@student.anu.edu.au wrote:
> Now, as for how people understand the world around them, I belive this is a
> function of those laws, but bearing in mind people have erronious beliefs
> about things (Aristotle and planetary motion, for example). Aristotle was
> wrong about the way planets worked in Core Earth. It is pretty silly to say
> that he was right and that the universe changed when the Copernican
> revolution happened; no-one but Copernicus belived that the sun was the
> center of the solar system. If the general shape of beliefs formed the
> 'laws of physics' at that time, Copernicus would have no evidence to back
> his theory up with. 
> 
> People do not have an intuitive understanding of the maximum technology
> possible in thier cosm. They may have a good understanding of how thier
> physical world works, simply by experimentation (or, in Aysle, they
> understand what is true because they see it to be true, thanks to the Law
> of Observation)
> 
> I see the axioms as being, barring interference from High Lords or what
> have you, fixed in a given cosm. So CE's tech level has always been 22+;
> there is no problem with the fact that different civilisations used
> different bits of technology with widely differing tech axioms. The axiom
> was always 22(+) so, there is no contradiction. Similarly with social,
> spiritual and magical axioms.

I think it would be possible to argue that you can explain the process
of technological development by stating that the _cosm's_ axioms place
a limit on what will _work_ (regularization of physical laws being
addressed elsewhere for the purposes of this argument), while the
_personal_ axioms of the residents place a limit on what they can
understand and conceive of.

So, you have the prehistoric proto-humans, who start with personal Tech
axioms of 0. Over time, some discover and understand fire, raising
their personal axiom level; the others regard it as mystical and
incomprehensible -- and are unable to produce it for themselves -- but
learn how, raising their Tech axiom. The process is repeated over
time, as inventors push their personal axiom higher, then spread the
fruits of their effort to the population; each individual raises their
personal Tech axiom as they make the leap to understanding the new
technology.

This would explain why you have people that are unable to program
their VCRs -- their personal Tech axiom isn't high enough for them to
understand what they're doing, and they keep disconnecting.
Fortunately, they're in their home cosm, and reconnection is trivial.

Outside your cosm, you still carry the inherent limits of your own
cosm with you, so someone from Aysle wouldn't be able to raise their
personal Tech axiom to 23 to be able to use Core Earth technology in
Core Earth without fear of disconnection.

> As for the problem of the sonus to one'e Scienc skill rolls, consider this:
> tere is a difference between the axioms of one's cosm, and the axiom level
> to which one understands science. If Leonardo Da Vinci were suddely brought
> to the 20th century, he would still use whatever axiom level he understood
> science at as his bonus (which would be, what, about 15 or 16?). This is
> irrespective of the fact that he leaned his science in a tech 23 cosm, and
> was now living in a world which uses tech 23 technology. Leonardo still
> uses tech 16 science and builds tech 16 technology with it. 

See above. I think that you could successfully argue that Leonardo da
Vinci was a step or two past his cultural Tech axiom in some aspects
of science; what he invented was limited primarily by his lack of
supporting knowledge from outside his expertise. If you handed him an
internal-combustion engine, he might not be able to repair or
duplicate it, but he wouldn't have any great problem in modifying his
'tank' design to use it, instead of horses, for propulsion.

> The Incas, then, had a tech 16 understanding of irrigation and
> architecture, but only a tech 5 understanding of metalsmithing. (but I
> agree: the TL charts are Eurocentric.). Not a problem, thought, cause the
> world they were living in has a tech axiom of 22.

This type of situation argues for breaking the Tech axiom up into an
axiom for physical laws -- how the universe works and the limits on
what is _possible_ -- and several separate values for various aspects
of technology, allowing a culture to be advanced in one branch of
knowledge and deficient in another.


-- 
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Sean Malloy                                  | Sleep? Isn't that just a
Navy Personnel Research & Development Center | completely inadequate substitute
San Diego, CA 92152-6800                     | for caffeine? 
malloy@nprdc.navy.mil                        | 
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