7.3 KiB
Worm Pre-cog and implications in other settings.
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Author: u/LeonCross *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3j20e1/worm_precog_and_implications_in_other_settings/
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Score: 13
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Created: 2015-08-31T06:48:03
Post:
Just trying to wrap my head around something. The existence of Path to Victory suggests that the Worm universe is a deterministic one. If you can 100% simulate actions and consequences outside built in limitations, it stands to reason the world is deterministic. "Path to winning this rock paper scissors game against bob in 10 years?" "Throw rock." The other guy is going to throw scissors, unless an action is taken based on the knowledge he's going to throw scissors that disrupts that.
Taking the other high power pre-cog, Dinah sees percents. Supposedly it's seeing the percent of timelines in which X Y or Z happens. "What are the odds Bob throws scissors in 10 years?" "33.33%"
I guess my question is this: In a setting in which perfect precognition is a thing that exists, can you have multiple possible timelines, or would precognition that suggests such things simply be a limitation of that particular power?
(Some might use Coil as a counter for worm in particular. Apparently WoG is that the second timeline is simulated. Coil starts A and B. The shard, via precog, already knows which option Coil will pick and thus simulates the second one.)
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+20] Time flies like an arrow (19 minutes later)
Word of God is that PtV is also simulated, so the universe isn't actually deterministic. Same goes for most of the precog powers. This is part of why the PtV can be wrong sometimes; it doesn't give a full and accurate simulation all the time, because there are things that can interfere with the simulation space.
In a setting in which perfect precognition is a thing that exists, can you have multiple possible timelines, or would precognition that suggests such things simply be a limitation of that particular power?
You might want to read this post. I think it's mostly analogous, because perfect precognition is basically a form of time travel except the only thing doing the traveling is information.
In short, I think the answer is yes. We can easily imagine two universes which are self-consistent in different ways even if they are exactly the same prior to the incident of time travel (or precognition). By analogy, it's like a game with multiple Nash equilibria. The person who can see future probabilities can see all of the equilibria that might result from the circumstances while the person who can see the path to victory can see which equilibrium they're going to end up at.
(It's late a night here, so hopefully I haven't made any glaring errors in logic.)
u/LeonCross [+5] (3 hours later)
Was PtV ever wrong about anything that wasn't a programmed blind spot?
u/GeeJo [+10] Custom Flair (5 hours later)
We don't really see all that much of Contessa's power in action, to be honest. She interacts with only a handful of characters in the text, and of those only Coil really counts as a precog.
Scion's PTV for meeting Eden again was notably flawed, but that was largely a framing error rather than an actual diversion of the path.
u/Quillwraith [+8] Red King Consolidated (5 hours later)
Spoilers here. Lots of spoilers. Anyway. Contessa's shard was one Eden never meant to give out; as I understand it, that means it doesn't have programmed blind spots.
The fact that Cauldron even bothers with other thinkers and tinkers implies that she has some sort of limitation regarding things like path to writing down the percent chance of this formula creating a case 53, or path to building a copy of Hero's technology. Maybe PtV has trouble integrating perfect short-term planning with perfect long-term planning, even though it's capable of both?
Note that in practice, even being unable to simulate Zion & the Endbringers will make it very far from perfect in the long run, given how much they influence the state of the world.
u/gbear605 [+12] history’s greatest story (6 hours later)
IIRC, she wasn't restricted until during her fight with Eden. During that, Eden was able to restrict her shard.
u/None [+3] (9 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Quillwraith [+2] Red King Consolidated (a day later)
I've never been quite clear on whether that is the case or not. Lung's really looks deliberate to me.
u/PresN [+2] (2 days later)
My understanding is that, as Eden was killed, it restricted the PtV shard. Contessa had several blind spots, namely:
- She could not use PtV to directly counter/predict anything Scion did, and by inference Eden; I would expect that this is why they could not predict what the formulas would do- because they were technically shards of Eden's dead-but-still-dreaming body. This was the main cause of Cauldron's strategy- Contessa could not ask PtV "How do I defeat Scion with the minimum number of casualties", they had to frame questions around him instead.
- She could not use PtV against the Endbringers.
- She could not use PtV against specific capes; notably, Eidolon. She countered this one by building a mental model of Eidolon, and then asking PtV to use that instead of the real one. "How do I make my mental model of Eidolon do X", not "How do I make Eidolon do X". It's unclear which other capes were blind spots, since Cauldron had a habit of letting powerful capes run amuck to cause triggers rather than try to PtV them into submission.
u/None [+1] (10 hours later)
I figure that the reason she didn't replicate Hero's tech was more to do with the fact that any task which building Tinkertech could solve could also be solved by suborning another Tinker or just pure skill.
u/Quillwraith [+3] Red King Consolidated (a day later)
Hero was just an example. Path to building X can duplicate any tinker or group of tinkers, and doesn't have mass production limits. If they considered it worth having tinkers around to fight Zion, then why not >tinkertech armed armies?
If there isn't some limit on such uses of PtV, her power effectively includes those of Accord, Uber, Leet without the once-only limit, Armsmaster, Bakuda, Blasto, Bonesaw, Sphere, String Theory Numbers Man and Tattletale. It stretches my credulity to think that none of those abilities were sufficiently relevant to become a major part of Cauldron's plans.
u/Kishoto [+1] (a day later)
I think, as somewhat rational thinkers, we can all sit here and speculate as to why PtV wasn't abused so much more than it was (even though it really was). Can we just write it off as necessary narrative framing combined with the limits of power usage (thinker headaches)?
u/None [+1] (59 minutes later)
This is part of why the PtV can be wrong sometimes; it doesn't give a full and accurate simulation all the time, because there are things that can interfere with the simulation space.
Things tied to the nature of shards as technology, sure. The same way a bomber cannot blanket a city because the creators coded in some strange limitations.