scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/5aluek.md

Full Metal Rationalist?

• Author: u/Pious_Mage *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5aluek/full_metal_rationalist/

• Score: 9

• Created: 2016-11-01T21:25:52

Post:

How exactly would this work with such a heavy presence of God in key plot points such as The Truth? While the alchemy can and already is explained pretty rationally, stuff such as souls, Truth, Homunculus's powers and Alphonse's body, how could that all be explained well rationally?

Comments:

u/Bobertus [+52] (23 minutes later)

If you live in a world that has gods, souls, alchemy and homunculi, believe in gods, souls alchemy and homunculi is entirely rational.

u/scruiser [+23] CYOA (47 minutes later)

I think FMA is pretty internally consistent as far as settings go... Alchemy ultimately has to obey limits similar to the normal limits entropy and thermodynamics puts on chemistry. There seems to be some extra limitations regarding the information involved (i.e. trying to resurrect the dead lacks the necessary information and is thus an attempt at violating equivalent exchange). My headcanon for Truth is that it was some sort of reflection of the character confronting it. As in naturally, Truth isn't something intelligent, rather it is an abstract phenomena, but the attempt at violating equivalent exchange by raising the dead causes them to interact with it in a way that seems like intelligence.

As for making characters rational... Father is already pretty rational, with a thought out plan and logical steps to reach it he just underestimated humans. Also note Father makes a good metaphor for AI in a box. Ed and Al could have been smarter and tested their resurrection scheme animals first, and maybe they would have lost less for trying to violate equivalent exchange. But after that, they were pretty smart about pursuing their goals. Likewise with Roy and his goals... actually in general FMA is pretty rational in term of character goals and motivations and decisions.

Also, I think there is a rule that brainstorming is supposed to go in a weekly thread unless you have written at least one chapter of a rational work. This rule is in place so that people don't clutter up the hot/new page with various brainstorming that never gets written. IDK if mods will delete this post or if it is just a warning the first time, but please post to a relevant weekly thread otherwise. (I think this topic might be good for a Wednesday world-building for example.)

u/None [+2] (4 days later)

Resurrecting animals works, possibly because the necessary information is supplied by the alchemist's mind. For a few chapters, Edward is very disturbed by the notion that resurrecting humans works in the same way as resurrecting animals, and that Al is a construct of his mind, rather than the same mind his brother had prior to being affixed to a suit of armour. He only gets over this when presented with the evidence that Winry and Al have shared experiences that Edward wasn't a part of.

The experimental setup where you train animals to do things the alchemist isn't aware of and then check if the animal can do those things after being resurrected is kind of non-obvious. In the manga, Edward didn't consider it until he met another soul attached to armour who suggested it to him. Also it's implied there's a pretty high cost to resurrecting animals, so though it's known to be possible, it's probably not the sort of thing you'd check on a whim.

u/None [+2] (5 hours later)

Eh, don't really agree that FMA is internally consistent. Sure our characters individually appear like rational actors - 'sides the villains - but that all unravels the instant you question society at large. It really should look more like a post-scarcity world, than an early 20th century one.

Additionally there isn't a convenient excuse like in Worm, which lets us ignore all of this either. If you try to blame the big bad then you need to ask why Xing looks like this too.

u/Running_Ostrich [+6] (10 hours later)

Why should it be a post-scarcity world? iirc, alchemists needed to train for years to gain proficiency we see, and the ones we do see are at the peak of alchemist ability.

u/None [+4] (12 hours later)

Language wasn't clear, sorry. Meant to say that it should be more like a post-scarcity world, not that it was one yet. As per the why...

Transmutation circles have been shown to be highly robust; non-Elric alchemists use the same circles in a wide variety of situations to cause complex effects. e.g. The Iron Blood Alchemist can create complicated projectile weaponry in uncontrolled enviroments.

Alchemists have been shown using transmutation circles they did not design. e.g. The Flame Alchemist.

Children of very young ages have been shown performing alchemy. e.g. The Fullmetal Alchemist.

So now we're ready to munchkin the hell out of this (as any real world nation would):

1. Teach your population how to activate transmutation circles.
2. Develop useful transmutation circles for the masses. e.g. create luxary goods, food, houses, etc.
3. ????
4. Profit!!!!

In the reality of FMA the existence of non-Elric alchemists breaks the setting. To see why just ask yourself: why are there no civilians using mass produced transmutation circles to cast magic missle at each other?

Edit: I do concede another possibility. i.e. The world blew up the instant someone decided to make antimatter.

u/CouteauBleu [+9] We are the Empire. (18 hours later)

I don't think we've been shown anyone using a transmutation circle someone else wrote. Mustang uses a circle designed by his master, but he presumably had to understand it on some level before being able to use it, and he wrote the patterns on his gloves himself.

Given that 'enlightened' alchemists can perform without circles, I think it's a fair guess that alchemy mostly depends on your mind, and the circles are just a visual help.

u/Igigigif [+6] IT Foxgirl (20 hours later)

Also, don't forget that alchemy is heavily limited by the user's understanding of physics and chemistry. It may be that modern alchemy relies on new-ish discoveries.

What I'd like to know more about is alchemy in other countries that didn't have access to xercean alchemy

u/Yama951 [+2] (2 days later)

All I know from the anime is that Xing's alchemy follows some sort of Feng Shui or laylines as they were able to feel something off with the alchemy of Ametris and were unaffected by the anti-alchemy thing, if memory serves.

u/narfanator [+9] (a day later)

Gods, souls, etc aren't inherently irrational, they're just not rationally supported by observations in this universe.

Rationality is a thing people do, not a thing that realities are.

u/NoYouTryAnother [+4] (19 hours later)

Edit: What I originally wrote was illconsidered and unkind.

u/Pious_Mage [+3] (20 hours later)

Wow that was incredibly hostile, geez I don't even hate religion (I don't believe in it) but I have no problems with the belief in fate or God, I was more theorizing and brainstorming then anything else.

u/Nevereatcars [+1] The Greatest Is Behind (23 hours later)

This is not the correct way to raise your objections.

u/NoYouTryAnother [+1] (a day later)

You're probably right. OP has my apologies. I see a lot of unconsidered tribalism round the the LessWrong parts, but I wrote what I did in haste and more directed at my perception of those attitudes than towards what OP said himself.

u/Iconochasm [+5] (an hour later)

I think FMA is already close enough to count as rational. A favorite scene for anyone who hasn't watched it yet.

u/PenultimatePresence [+2] I shall make a promisement to not perform malice (9 hours later)

I've had an idea on how to make the magic (Alchemy) of FMA somewhat more structured, and I guess I'll put it here in the hopes that it can get passed around and maybe used by someone.

First, some observations: (Spoilers!)

° Al's body, while separated from his 'soul', is still intelligent

° Al's armor-bound soul is able to perform alchemy

° Ed was able to give up his ability to perform alchemy without affecting anything else about himself

° A 'homunculus' was able to be created without any body

° People's lives have value and can harvested to apparently break the law of conservation

° Different alchemy circles have different functions

Alright, so what I've come up with to explain all this is that the people of the FMA universe possess something, maybe it's like a symbiotic entity or maybe its just like an extradimensional brain, that is capable of calculating/manipulating quantum randomness, basically as a form of probability manipulation.

I know I'm just pushing the 'it's magic' explanation down one level because there's no way I could explain how this 'quantum manipulation' actually happens or what this 'extradimensional' thing is, but this is one of the things I liked most about HPMOR, that the magic was given just a little more structure that distinguishes between the things that will or will not happen. Anyway, so people have this thing with which they can influence quantum probabilities such as, say, getting the brownian motion of the oxygen atoms in the air to organize them instead of randomize them. Furthermore this thing can (somehow) be stolen and amassed, allowing for greater feats of probability manipulation, such as extreme cases of quantum tunneling. This would sort of explain the inexhaustibility of a philosopher's stone because it's not that you're using the mass energy of people's souls, but rather using more computational power to perform more difficult feats (and maybe the only halfway done stone from the beginning broke because it was overtaxed?). Also, perhaps alchemy circles are like equations or circuits that make certain computations easier or channel the manipulation in a certain way, either as mnemonics or through direct manipulation of the calculation.

I'm not exactly sure how the Truth or consciousness would work exactly. Maybe a body is fine without this thing (like Al's body on the other side, or Ed after he gives up alchemy), maybe you die without it (like the people harvested to make the stones), maybe the thing can be conscious on its own (like homunculi), or maybe there's a third thing just for consciousness (like what a soul is conventionally). And maybe the Truth is an actual physical place where the quantum manipulation thing resides, or maybe it's just a visualization of what the thing is doing.

Also a couple quirks of this theory. Everybody would be able to use alchemy, because supposedly any human is as good as another when it comes to making a philosopher's stone so you can't just have certain people possess this thing. Philosopher's stones (and alchemists in general) wouldn't be capable of any brute force energy/mass generation (no simply conjuring a black hole or such) just more complex or improbable things.

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