[projectaon] Re: Editor's Companion Submission
- From: Sam Seaver <samseaver@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 13:55:51 -0600
Don't get me wrong, but from LW's perspective, doesn't the state
vector collapse every time the player makes a decision? Therefore,
before you start the book, and when you reach every section, every
possible outcome is occuring, but whichever outcome the player decides
holds true for LW as well as the player?
S
On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 12:50 AM, Timothy Pederick <pederick@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 2009/12/3 Thomas Wolmer <angantyr@xxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> Er, no. You (LW) may lead the Prince's reserves to help save the Eruan
>> Palace Guard, but then you *don't* fight together with Prarg. What you
>> do together with Prarg is to gather scattered soldiers to help save
>> the Lencian knights in their struggle at the bridge.
>
> Unfortunately, situations like this are inevitable. As the gamebook theorist
> Erwin Schrödinger described in his famous thought experiment, "Schrödinger's
> Wolf", all of the possible paths from a given decision section exist
> simultaneously, in a kind of state vector. It is only when a player actually
> comes to, and continues from that section, that this state vector (often
> depicted by use of a state vector graph, or SVG) collapses to a single
> outcome.
>
> That, of course, is the player's perception. But what of Lone Wolf's? From
> his perspective, all possible outcomes do occur -- and not foreseen by some
> precognition, as some have supposed (based on an obsolescent theory of the
> workings of the Sixth Sense line of Disciplines), but occurring
> simultaneously. Therefore, from Lone Wolf's perspective, at the Battle of
> Cetza, he did lead the Prince's reserves to save the Eruan Guards, at the
> same time as he was fighting together with Prarg at the bridge.
>
> Dever tries numerous (ingenious) ways to cause the state vector to collapse
> in a manner that will appear consistent to the player -- primarily the use
> of locations (Cetza, the Isle of Ghosts) or of objects (the Crystal Star
> Pendant, the Platinum Amulet), rather that referring to specific people whom
> Lone Wolf would remember both meeting and not meeting! On this occasion,
> however, he has bowed to reality somewhat: he has chosen to depict Lone
> Wolf's confusion of mind, by saying that Prarg was there leading Prince
> Graygor's reserves.
>
> I really don't think we should tamper with such an artistic solution to the
> quantum gamebook paradox.
>
> --
> Tim Pederick
>
>
--
Graduate student
Northwestern University
Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences (IBiS) Program
2205 Tech Drive (Room 2-108 )
Evanston, IL 60208, US
http://amaral.northwestern.edu/people/seaver/
samseaver@xxxxxxxxx
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