18 KiB
[RT][FF] Naruto. The Need to Become Stronger, Chapter 29: Spirits and Self-preservation
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Author: u/Sophronius The Need to Become Stronger*
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URL: https://needtobecomestronger.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/chapter-29/
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Score: 32
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Created: 2017-12-18T13:38:03
Post:
Comments:
u/sicutumbo [+13] (4 hours later)
I think Naruto is jumping to conclusions in his analysis of summoning and how it works. It's perfectly reasonable that the chakra the summoner pays is the payment for the summoned toad that they want for whatever reason, while the toad is the one who does all the teleportation on their own. He basically has come up with a single plausible solution, but he has effectively zero experimental data to back up that particular conclusion over any other explanation. The toads are intelligent, even if this one seemed not to care much about talking; he could ask them how it works. Not entirely sure if it was confirmed to be in this story, but the fourth Hokage had the ability to teleport over basically any distance. It's not much of a leap to think that the summoning process just gives the toads a beacon to teleport to.
There are of course other possibilities I haven't thought of, but my point stands.
Essentially, Naruto is failing as a rationalist or even as an intelligent person, because he believes the first hypothesis that fits his limited data is how summoning actually works.
u/tokol [+5] The Greater Good (9 hours later)
Naruto thinking
That settled it.is overconfident, but we get to see him being curious, asking questions, and making inferences from the available data. I think that it's both in character and potentially very valuable for Naruto to come up with a plausible working model like this to begin with.Plus, even at the end, he doesn't sound like he's committing himself too much to his current theory:
That settled it. “Dad, it sounds like (emphasis added) these giant animal spirits can only survive in areas with lots of natural chakra...
Naruto actually first comes up with the beacon hypothesis:
“Okay. Then I’m guessing they get a chakra signal when you try to summon them, right? And the blood contract functions as a seal network set up to let them know it’s you. So then does a toad with the right size and chakra get summoned automatically, or do they choose who answers the summoning themselves? ...
But then Jiraya clearly implies that the length of the summoning is dependent on how much chakra was used in the summoning jutsu:
“I didn’t put a whole lot of effort into it just now, so it’s already gone back to mount Myōboku.”
So now the beacon hypothesis implies that the two-way teleportation chakra costs are a fixed part (and probably relatively small part) of the total jutsu cost, are being paid by the summoned creature (because maybe ninja chakra is highly valued over their nature chakra or something), or are being supplied by a third party (perhaps an ability imbued in the contract itself, which Naruto doesn't look into).
I think Naruto is applying Occam's Razor by taking the direct link between chakra costs and summon time at face value. That implies that chakra is being pooled up and then actively spent to keep the summoned creature around. He guesses that the return effect is either a natural phenomenon (
space just… snaps back after a while?) or built into the technique itself. He uses his knowledge from the Forest of Death and gets Jiraya to confirm that there's another link between summon time and ambient chakra level - that the technique is effectively indefinite with enough present.By assuming summoned creatures are chakra animals, he neatly explains the cost and the increased duration because he already knows that they need ambient chakra to live. It fits together. If the universe snapping back was the primary cause of return, then Jiraya's experience implies some sort of mechanism which uses ambient chakra to refill or supplement his initial summoning pool.
Anyways, moving on to speculation - perhaps Naruto will discover a way to sustain a stronger summon for longer by replenishing the jutsu over time without having to pay the full cost up front?
EDIT:
Started writing this before /u/Sophronius's reply above. Pleased to see that I hit on a lot of the same points.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
I think Naruto is applying Occam's Razor by taking the direct link between chakra costs and summon time at face value. That implies that chakra is being pooled up and then actively spent to keep the summoned creature around. He guesses that the return effect is either a natural phenomenon (space just… snaps back after a while?) or built into the technique itself. He uses his knowledge from the Forest of Death and gets Jiraya to confirm that there's another link between summon time and ambient chakra level - that the technique is effectively indefinite with enough present.
I know you are defending my own explanation, but reading this I actually realize I made a mistake: Based on what Jiraiya says, chakra put into the technique lets you summon bigger frogs AND lets you summon the same frog for longer. That means one input variable determines two output variables which... isn't possible, unless the two output variables are connected. I.e. It costs more chakra to summon more powerful animals (i.e. animals with more chakra of their own), and then the animal's own chakra determines summon time as they automatically get teleported back when they are close to running out. I think I'll make that canon actually.
(the alternative you mention, that the two chakra pools get combined with preference given to human chakra, feels like it should get a complexity penalty)
Anyways, moving on to speculation - perhaps Naruto will discover a way to sustain a stronger summon for longer by replenishing the jutsu over time without having to pay the full cost up front?
Pff, as if Naruto would seriously consider an incremental improvement to an existing technique as a useful expenditure of his time :P
u/Sophronius [+5] The Need to Become Stronger (9 hours later)
I'll agree with you on the general note that it's a bit unrealistic for Naruto to just instantly figure things out, but I have to disagree with the specific issues you mention. First off, he does not come up with the correct solution right away, as I explicitly had him think of another (wrong) explanation first to address that issue.
Then, he did in fact test between his two hypotheses by asking Jiraiya for experimental data (It is NOT necessary in science to do your own experiments if others have already done this for you). Yes, it's possible for the toads to naturally be able to teleport back, however, Naruto does not take this possibility seriously because he already knows that you can summon frogs in any shape and size (even tadpoles) and they will still teleport back automatically, despite teleportation generally being incredibly difficult.
To put it succinctly: It is not impossible for all summoned animals to have the ability to teleport back specifically to the place where a ninja just summoned them from without spending chakra and despite being injured and unconscious after fighting, but given that the phenomenon you're trying to explain is teleportation and given that this only happens in the presence of those rare individuals who already have the ability to teleport animals, this alternative possibility carries such a huge complexity penalty that Naruto rightfully dismisses it.
Despite that, Naruto still implicitly tested for this by asking Jiraiya about contract length, and it turned out that animals automatically go back to their place of summoning after a length of time which depends on A) how much chakra the caster put into the original technique and B) the amount of natural chakra in the area, of which Naruto already knows chakra animals rely on (from the Forest of Death chapter)
None of the summoned animals so far have displayed any ability for speech - this is because they can't talk in NTBS (no human vocal cords, for one thing). But I'll agree this is not obvious from reading the story.
Basically, Naruto is cheating by working out the entire chain of logic above instantly, while a real scientist would have to sit down and gather all the information and think about it for a while, but the actual reasoning he performs is entirely sound as far as I can tell.
u/sicutumbo [+6] (9 hours later)
Then, he did in fact test between his two hypotheses by asking Jiraiya for experimental data (It is NOT necessary in science to do your own experiments if others have already done this for you). Yes, it's possible for the toads to naturally be able to teleport back, however, Naruto does not take this possibility seriously because he already knows that you can summon frogs in any shape and size (even tadpoles) and they will still teleport back automatically, despite teleportation generally being incredibly difficult.
Considering he seems to just be learning about the toad contract, where does he get in character knowledge that tadpoles can be summoned? Why would Jiraiya tell him.about that before telling him what the toad contract can do at all?
For only a minor complexity penalty, there could be some agent that teleports the summoned animals to and from the summoned realm. To me, this makes more sense than a technique that makes two points in space converge, is intelligent enough to return the toad when it becomes sufficiently damaged, and also can sustain itself off of natural chakra.
Despite that, Naruto still implicitly tested for this by asking Jiraiya about contract length, and it turned out that animals automatically go back to their place of summoning after a length of time which depends on A) how much chakra the caster put into the original technique and B) the amount of natural chakra in the area, of which Naruto already knows chakra animals rely on (from the Forest of Death chapter)
He knows that the length of the summon correlates with the input chakra and surrounding natural chakra. He hasn't established causation, nor has he tried to disprove his hypothesis. He never asked for any other scenarios where the toads might stay longer than they normally would.
None of the summoned animals so far have displayed any ability for speech - this is because they can't talk in NTBS (no human vocal cords, for one thing), and both Jiraiya and Kakashi seem to treat them as pets, so it's perfectly logical for Naruto to assume they are the animals they appear to be. But I'll agree this is not obvious from reading the story.
So he knows that they use tools, and water techniques, and can understand language well enough to take directions in the middle of combat and be trusted to follow them, but still thinks they are animals?
u/Sophronius [+3] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
where does he get in character knowledge that tadpoles can be summoned? Why would Jiraiya tell him.about that before telling him what the toad contract can do at all?
He grew up with Jiraiya in NTBS, and has made references to seeing Jiraiya's toads before. He was just never taught about the technique, because ninjas don't share secret knowledge like that for no reason. He might not know about tadpoles, but he definitely saw Jiraiya summon a small frog in the chapter with Minato's letter, and that one still teleported back automatically.
(I do realize that Naruto comes across as a bit too ignorant/shocked in this chapter, given the above)
For only a minor complexity penalty, there could be some agent that teleports the summoned animals to and from the summoned realm. To me, this makes more sense than a technique that makes two points in space converge, is intelligent enough to return the toad when it becomes sufficiently damaged, and also can sustain itself off of natural chakra.
This is in no way, shape or form a 'minor complexity penalty'. I do acknowledge that 'a wizard did it' is more reasonable in the Naruto world, but then you would have to posit a single agent governing ALL ninjutsu as part of a radically different theory from everything the Second Hokage etc has established so far, since then all attempts at naturalistic explanations are redundant. You absolutely CANNOT invoke a seperate agent each time you run into a technique you don't understand, regardless of how many actual wizards there are in-universe, because then you have no working model at all.
Your argument for "the technique does it" hypothesis being complex does not work because it is already a given that the technique connects two points in space: For one thing, it had already been shown to teleport humans. You can't shift probability weights merely by pointing out that a fact which has already been observed had a low prior probability. (though given the existence of other teleportation techniques, it wasn't all that low to begin with)
Given the above, the correct question to ask is: "Why don't humans teleport back automatically, and why does it cost so much more chakra to summon humans?" That's the part that Naruto's hypothesis can't yet explain.
He knows that the length of the summon correlates with the input chakra and surrounding natural chakra. He hasn't established causation, nor has he tried to disprove his hypothesis.
You're putting up requirements for publishing research in a scientific journal, but all Naruto is trying to do at this point is establishing the most likely hypothesis in order to get a working model.
So he knows that they use tools, and water techniques, and can understand language well enough to take directions in the middle of combat and be trusted to follow them, but still thinks they are animals?
You're right about that one, which is why I deleted that comment. Actually, Naruto strongly implies that he suspects they're more than just animals (given Kurama's quote, and the unnerving look in their eyes). However, the only thing this really argues for is trying to establish some method of communication.
(also, I maybe should have removed the tool use thing. I mainly removed their ability to speak because having quirky talking animal companions around felt stupid)
u/sicutumbo [+1] (a day later)
He was just never taught about the technique, because ninjas don't share secret knowledge like that for no reason. He might not know about tadpoles, but he definitely saw Jiraiya summon a small frog in the chapter with Minato's letter, and that one still teleported back automatically.
I was under the impression that the secret knowledge, the things that ninja put effort into not spreading even in their own village, is how to do the techniques, not what their effects are. Everyone knows that Kakashi can do his lightning hand thing, and he makes no secret of that or generally what that technique can do, but he guards how to do it. Similarly, I see little reason for Jiraiya not to tell Naruto at some point what his toads can do, even if he doesn't share the mechanics of how it works.
Also, I haven't reread this story, and have been reading it as it comes out, so I may have forgotten some bits.
This is in no way, shape or form a 'minor complexity penalty'. I do acknowledge that 'a wizard did it' is more reasonable in the Naruto world, but then you would have to posit a single agent governing ALL ninjutsu as part of a radically different theory from everything the Second Hokage etc has established so far, since then all attempts at naturalistic explanations are redundant. You absolutely CANNOT invoke a seperate agent each time you run into a technique you don't understand, regardless of how many actual wizards there are in-universe, because then you have no working model at all.
If, as you say, the summoned animals don't have human level intelligence, then it's rather odd that the technique requires a contract, as a contract implies two intelligent parties. I'm not proposing an intelligent agent for any particular technique, I'm positing a mediator for a technique that already involves a human and what I believe to be a nearly human level intelligence animal.
Anyways, I'm kind of getting off track. My original post wasn't meant to say "this is the correct solution and Naruto should have seen it", it was more "Naruto didn't have enough evidence to justify his belief in his particular hypothesis over other plausible ones." Yes, his hypothesis fits the data, but he seems rather certain of it given that he only has a few data points.
(also, I maybe should have removed the tool use thing. I mainly removed their ability to speak because having quirky talking animal companions around felt stupid)
I'd recommend against it. There has to be some reason why elite ninja would use potentially huge amounts of chakra on combat summons over any other technique they know, and said summons would have to be intelligent enough to be more than minor obstacles against opposing ninja. If they're smart enough to be useful, then so long as they can hold weapons it makes sense for them to use them. They don't necessarily have to have made said weapons themselves though.
u/SkyTroupe [+2] (3 days later)
Just read chapters 28 and 29. That burst from Sakura was great and really helped ram in the fact that even if Naruto is rational, he hasnt gotten rid of all of his biases yet. He's still caught up in the madness of the world.
I like the portrayal of Shikamaru.
u/Veedrac [+1] (3 hours later)
Typo
Whenever you come up with a clever ploy that is like to destroy you
u/Sophronius [+6] The Need to Become Stronger (8 hours later)
It's actually archaic english - I think Shakespear used it, for example. Then again, it's pretty obscure and if this sort of thing trips people up, then maybe it's better to remove it. So good thing you point it out, either way.