From: rose@acf9.nyu.edu (David Rose)
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg
Subject: Re: Axiom mania!
Date: 8 Apr 92 20:02:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: acf9.rose.702763367
Organization: New York University

malloy@nprdc.navy.mil (Sean Malloy) writes:

>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.

[plenty of good examples ruthlessly edited out.]

  Two objections.

  1.  I don't like 2 axioms which now do the work of 1.  This is
  a complication that I would prefer to do without, unless without
  such modification there are some things which can be conceived of,
  in roleplaying terms, but not roleplayed because of the rules.

  2.  Since the Everlaw of One disconnects someone who attempts to
  use their possibility energy to create a Tech contradiction rather
  than transforming the object, this argues that the Tech axiom is
  about how living beings can manipulate unliving objects.

      Granted, in examples given elsewhere, I argue that disconnection
  works by using two distinct effects of the sort that you point out
  here.  (A) By altering the physical laws in the form of material
  properties (explosives aren't explosive in either LL or Aysle).
  (B) By altering the relationship between the user and the object
  (pilot can no longer fly a glider).  From this distinction I believe
  comes the point of view you are holding.

      One can argue that a hand grenade explodes or does not explode
  according to the laws of physics.  But are we talking Core Earth
  physics, as observed by Core Earth Humans or are we talking Takta Ker
  physics, as observed by Living Land Edeinos?  One may hypothesize
  (and most people do) that physics works independant of human
  observation, but this need not be so.  Perhaps the floor holds me
  up not because of physics, but because I and everyone else using
  it believe that the floor should hold me up.  Furthermore this
  effect might be so powerful as to travel along timelines insuring
  that not only do I not experience the sudden disappearance of
  material, but that I never witness hard evidence of such as well.
  So the hand grenade doesn't explode when I drop it down the well
  not because there is somebody there, but because if it did produce
  any sort of detectible explosive event, then someone might detect
  it, which is a contradiction.

>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.

  I've toyed with allowing the Tech axiom to be broken up into
several distinct dimensions: a biotech axis, a mechtech axis, an
architech axis, ....  On the whole, I think it is more complexity
than it is worth.  However, I agree that the Tech axioms are Eurocentric,
and hence make oriental history somewhat contradictory.  Instead
of throwing out the Tech list and making something more complicated
though, I think it is easier to use some Tech axiom for general
levels and fine tune with World Laws.
--
David Rose
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
251 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012
rose@math12.cims.nyu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg