Reference:RAWA/1997 Lyst posts

Re: Ages: created or bridged?

Date: Wednesday, September 17, 1997

I have a question about some of Atrus's observations in BoA. Gehn tells him that the books actually create the ages, thus giving Gehn the excuse to act like a GOD once he gets there. And why not? If he actually did create the world, then this is a GOD-like act... (even if this would be considered breaking rule #1 of the D'ni Guild writers).

BUT, Atrus comes to the conclusion that the books don't create the Ages; they act as a bridge to an infinite number of pre-existing worlds--and I believe that in BoT, this idea is the one they support as well....

The D'ni histories indicate that the D'ni did not believe that they were creating the Ages they linked to. They seemed to understand that the Ages already existed, and that they were merely creating the _links_to these Ages. This is Atrus' view as well.

Gehn, on the other hand, wants to control the Ages he has made, and uses the power of the Books to intimidate the inhabitants of those worlds. He believes he has the power to create, and therefore the right to do what he wishes with the Ages (and the inhabitants).

So, my question is this: if Atrus is right, then how is it possible for Catherine and Anna to rewrite Riven while Gehn and Atrus are there and then all the changes they wrote alters the Age?

This is the most complicated and confusing aspect of The Art.

In order to gain a deeper knowledge of the workings of the Books, we'll need a working knowledge of quantum mechanics.

!! WARNING 11 - GREAT, BIG, HEAVY, COMPLICATED EXPLANATION - !! WARNING !!

Many of the interpretations of quantum theory say that until a state of matter is observed, it exists in many states simultaneously - it creates a bizarre "probability wave" that contains all of the possible states of that matter. Therefore, as was proposed in Schrodinger's famous cat analogy, bizarre things happen on the quantum level that allow things like Schrodinger's cat to be both alive and dead at the same time, until one ov the states of observed, locking it in a single state, and collapsing the "probability wave."

What the D'ni seem to have concluded (proved?), is that those waves don't actually cease to exist altogether, instead each possibility continues to exist in an alternate quantum reality (read "parallel universe"), until a state is observed in that quantum reality, and the possibilities not observed in that quantum reality continue to exist in still another, and so on ad infinitum. This makes the universe infinitely complex, with every possible quantum combination since the creation of the universe existing in a quantum reality somehere (even the "unstable Ages"). The Books somehow allow observation of (thus the locking of) and travel to those quantum realities.

So, you can make "unobserved" changes (probabilities that haven't been locked down by description in the Book, or by physical observation in the Age itself) without forcing the Book to link to a new quantum reality.

This is why being careful of contradictions is so important. The problem with contradictions is that the Book attemps to link to a quantum reality that matches a contradictory description, and the closest thing it can find is usually fairly unstable.

I could write for days and still not do this subject justice, but that's the best I can do right now. Hope it helps explain it a bit.

Oh, and I see that hand in the back.

"What about the changes to Riven? You still haven't answered that."

The changes made to Riven near the end of the Book of Atrus (pg 268 in the hardcover edition), were a collaboration between Anna and Catherine. Anna's main contribution was probably keeping the Book free of contradictions. Catherine's intuitive (but D'ni rule-breaking) style was so bizarre that earlier Atrus had claimed that her Books wouldn't even work - yet they did.

The daggers which mysteriously appeared around the island, and the lava filled fissures were made possible by her odd style - which I cannot explain. And although Catherine and Anna intended for the lava filled fissures as part of their plan to rescue Atrus while still leaving Gehn trapped in his Fifth Age, the Star Filled Fissure was not intentional or anticipated.

To me, it remains the most mysterious object in all the D'ni histories.

shorah,

RAWA

[If you're interested in further study of quantum physics, my two favorite books on the subject are: "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat" by John Bribbin, and "Quantum Physics" by Nick Herbert.]

Re: BoA and Linking

Date: Thursday, November 13, 1997

I was reading BoD the other night and something finally made sense to me. When you link, you can link to any place at ANY TIME. In BoA, Atrus linked back to a time before they were ever there.

Sorry to add to the confusion, but linking to an earlier time doesn't explain the situation in the Book of Atrus. Atrus actually linked to a completely separate, albeit remarkably similar, Age.

Gehn's removeal of the phrases in the Age 37 Descriptive Book forced the Book to choose another Age which still fit the description. The Ages were very similar, but distinct.

Making changes and additions to a Book once you've linked there is _extremely_ dangerous, and great care must be taken. [If discussions of quantum mechanics give you a headache, skip the rest of this paragraph.] If you try to make changes whose probility waveforms have already collapsed due to concious observation, or blatantly contradict something written elsewhere in the Book, the best you can hope for is that the book will create a link to a different, but similar Age. At worst, it will create a link to something totally bizzare, possibly unviable, probably unstable; or the book will cease to function completely.

From what we know of D'ni history, it was standard for D'ni writers to complete their works before ever linking to them. Once the Age was written, the maintainers would inspect the book's discription, and travel there, then approve the book. No changes to the book were generally allowed after it had been stamped by the maintainers.

Gehn, however, was basically teaching himself to write, using trial and error, taking phrases from various Books he found. This is the main reason that the Ages his Books link to are so unstable.

Atrus also altered Books after linking at various times, while learning the Art, but he was more careful when doing so. He is especially careful with changes that he's making in the Riven Descriptive Book, because there's a lot more at stake.

RAWA

Re: More linking issues

Date: Friday, November 14, 1997

Fan A wrote

what happens if two linking books are written identically? (by the same writer, by different writers -- at the same time, at different times)

Fan B wrote

I suspect that two writers, not in contact, accidentally writing the same series of characters into their Descriptive Books, would get different ages, superficially similar, but with difference - Atrus is always commenting, in his journals, about how much he finds that he didn't write.

Even if the same writer wrote the exact same thing in two different Descriptive Books, the changes of the Descriptive Books linking to the same Age are so extremely remote that it's considered impossible to write two Descriptive Books to the same Age. In the "infinity" of the "Tree of Possibilites" there are countless worlds to match any description you can write. There is a chaotic element in how the Book selects which of those many worlds it will link to, which even the D'ni never were able to compensate for.

There are documented theories that this chaotic element is due to the fact that no two Descriptive Books are exactly alike, and that these differences influence the initial Link. Experiments were attempted to produce identical Books, but the experiments were never successful, so this theory remains unproven.

Fan B wrote

I think that the writer's mind changes the age - A different person could write the same words, and have them mean different things. Note however that a slavish imitation would not be the same process of 'creation', but imitation, and so the mind of the writer would not elaborate on the details put down by his/her pen. (I realize this is an enormous body of of speculation, but it explains a lot of stuff for me - the mental process of creation seems as important, or more important then the physical writing.)

The D'ni histories seem to make it clear that this was part of the skill of the Art, learning how to put exactly what you wanted into very specific words. The Books cannot "read your intent".

Fan A wrote

Also, in a prior post I asked how you can alter a age by adjusting its test.. and I understand that nothing (time/space wise) matters as long as the text matches the age, but what if something signifigantly changes the age suddenly? since the age no longer matched the test, would the link switch?

Fan B wrote

I have not read BoD, so I feel free to speculate. I think that if the age changed significantly enough, the text in the book would change (or perhaps merely fade?), the way the text in the book 'wrenches' changes in the world by the principle of similarity (a common magical principle). I think that this messing around with quantum physics is not addressing the problems straight on.

No, the text doesn't change, and no, the Link doesn't necessarily change just because the Age does. At least one example of this can be found in the Book of D'ni.

Fan B wrote

For example, people must certainly have noticed the absence of large daggers sticking into Riven, or the absence of a huge starry fissure. However, with great skill, changes, real changes, not collapsing of superpositions, or shifting of the link to a neighboring age - changes can be made in an age by writing in it's Descriptive Book.

The daggers and the fissures were written by Catherine, who's unconventional writing style bends a number of D'ni writing rules. Atrus himself, when examining one of Catherine's works, didn't think the Book would work at all because of the way it was written (see the Book of Atrus).

Fan B wrote

I think that this doesn not violate the idea of linking, not creation, because the changes are (relatively) minor, and require a lot of skill/luck to implement successfully. For example, the stoneship age was a partial failure on Atrus' part - it did not come out the way he wished, and Atrus is a skilled writer of Age.

Stoneship was one of Atrus' earliest Ages, written about a year after Gehn was trapped on Riven. He wasn't nearly as skilled a writer at this time, he was still experimenting - teaching himself how to write, learning what works, what doesn't. The failure of the Stoneship experiment taught Atrus why the D'ni rules did not permit the writing of manmade objects into an Age.

Shorah, RAWA

Re: Riven Descriptive Book

Date: Monday, November 24, 1997

I have a couple of questions, Say Gehn were to take the Riven Descriptive book to Riven through the process of writing a linking book to Riven then carrying the descriptive book with him. And he made changes to the Descriptive book while in Riven. Would these changes happen immediately or would he have to link using the Descriptive book for the changes to occur? Or if the Descrptive book linking panel was black as I've heard some people say, would he have to link to D'ni or wherever and then link back.

No records have been found which describe experiments such as these, so any answer I would give is speculation at best.

On 11/13, I wrote something that relates to this:

From what we know of D'ni history, it was standard for D'ni writers to complete their works before ever linking to them. Once the Age was written, the maintainers would inspect the book's description, and travel there, then approve the book. No changes to the book were generally allowed after it had been stamped by the maintainers.

Gehn, however, was basically teching himself to write, using trial and error, taking phrases from various Books he found. This is the main reason that the Ages his Books link to are so unstable.

Atrus also altered Books after linking at various times, while learning the Art, but he was more careful when doing so. He is especially careful with changes that he's making in the Riven Descriptive Book, because there's a lot more at stake.

Because of the D'ni rules for not changing Books after the initial link, it doesn't surprise me that this topic isn't covered in any of the writings we've uncovered to date.

If you get your hands on any kortee'nea, and you want to conduct this experiment yourself, please feel free. But I wouldn't want to be the guinea pic for these test. smile.gif

When a person links, how much is taken with them? I mean obviously it stops somewhere because the whole planet isn't taken with them. Do you understand what I mean?

Rule of thumb - anything that comes with you when you take a step comes with you when you link (with the exception of the Book you're using to Link).

If you're wearing a hat: It somes with you when you take a step. It also comes with you when you link.

If you're touching a table: It doesn't come with you when you take a step. It won't come with you when you link.

This basic rule of thumb answers most "can I take this?" questions pretty easily.

For the more silly, or bizarre, or complicated, I just don't know.

Hope that helps.

Shorah,

RAWA