Spirits Giving Form.

[Midnight_Carnival]

Those interested in the workings of spirits meet once more in a dark and ominous circular room. The thaumaturge leans forwards, fingers steepled as though praying, yet his eyes are bright and alert. They say this one is mad and that he has more than dabbled in necromancy, yet there is an expectant hush as he prepares to say his piece on the deeper workings of different realms, on spirits and on bodies:

Ok, so it works like this:
We have Ubuntu Linux on the one drive and Windows Vista on the other. Ubuntu can see what's on the Windows disk, but can't change anything there, Windows can't see anything on Ubuntu, it won't even recognise the drive.

-that's supposed to be an analogy explaining how the two realms work. You see, you can copy certain files from Windows to Linux, but then you can't copy them back. Right?

The evolution thingy:
I have loads of hardcore Darwinist Athiest friends who read too much Dawkins and think they can disprove god. Evolution as natural selection, as in organisims who fit with the environment do well and those that don't die. Controling evolution by controling the environment is possible, but a lot of work. You want big Orcs so you kill all the small ones is not evolution.
The spirit changing body thing I was suggesting is more like... I suppose I should make another analogy here. Cheap fantasy demon comes and posesses sweet Cathy in the night while she's sleeping, let's call this demon Fred. Fred's a really nasty piece of work, in hell he's the last one you want to meet. Fred looks at Cathy's soft body and says to himself "Oh no, this will never do! How can I chanel my infernal wrath through this pathetic spongy creature? My demoic power's will rip it apart! How am I to sow violence and terror, how can I make it rain blood? This frail thing's arms will break before I push them through a human skull, it just won't do!" So Fred gives Cathy talons which would terrfy a Harpy Hag, teeth that same a hyeana, yellow eyes that can see in the dark, poisoned spines, thick grey skin and rotted bat wings just for good measure. "that's better!" say Fred.

[vcap]

You want big Orcs so you kill all the small ones is not evolution.

Yes, it is.

The spirit changing body thing I was suggesting is more like... I suppose I should make another analogy here. Cheap fantasy demon comes and posesses sweet Cathy in the night while she's sleeping, let's call this demon Fred. Fred's a really nasty piece of work, in hell he's the last one you want to meet. Fred looks at Cathy's soft body and says to himself "Oh no, this will never do! How can I chanel my infernal wrath through this pathetic spongy creature? My demoic power's will rip it apart! How am I to sow violence and terror, how can I make it rain blood? This frail thing's arms will break before I push them through a human skull, it just won't do!" So Fred gives Cathy talons which would terrfy a Harpy Hag, teeth that same a hyeana, yellow eyes that can see in the dark, poisoned spines, thick grey skin and rotted bat wings just for good measure. "that's better!" say Fred.

Here, you are speaking about controlling mutations. This is not selective breeding; selective breeding is killing the small orcs (or not allowing them to reproduce, which amounts to the same).

[Reepurr]

You want big Orcs so you kill all the small ones is not evolution.

Yes, it is.

Here, you are speaking about controlling mutations. This is not selective breeding; selective breeding is killing the small orcs (or not allowing them to reproduce, which amounts to the same).

So...
Killing all the small orcs is evolution and selective breeding at the same time? I thought it was either evolution or selective breeding.

[vcap]

So...
Killing all the small orcs is evolution and selective breeding at the same time?

Yes, see above.

[thespaceinvader]

You want big orcs so you kill all the small ones is selective breeding. Big orcs becoming more common because the smaller ones tend not to survive to breed is evolution. Subtle but defined difference. It doesn't apply to my explanation of the orcish size genetics anyway

Spirit inhabiting and changing body is nothing described by real life science. It would be termed mutation by pop/hollywood sci, but it does not fit the technical definition used by science.

[Midnight_Carnival]

Didn't get round to reading your Orc thing yet. Sorry.

I'm also not talking science here, hence the split from the other thread which seemed to want scientific explainations. I won't reject them, but I'm discussing how spirits could change the forms they inhabit or the world they come upon with magic.

To clarify for the sake of everyone still baffled by my twisted ramblings:
Evolution is natural selection, artificial selection is not evolution.
I shouldn't have said Orcs, I should have said Woses or Mermaids or something.

[Myrien]

I don't see a need for scientific explanations following the laws of our world in a world where magic and (possibly) different physical laws exist. I'm not saying that everything in wesnoth has to be different than it is here, but it doesn't have to be strictly scientifically correct. Personally, I think that the idea of spirits entering flesh and manipulating it, considering other types of magic in Wesnoth, is very believable.

[StDrake]

Spirit inhabiting and changing body is nothing described by real life science. It would be termed mutation by pop/hollywood sci, but it does not fit the technical definition used by science.

QFT, but it DOES perfectly suit wesnoth, or else you get into screwing the game over with a fork and explaining "HEY! MAGIC IS SCIENTIFICALLY CORRECT!"

..Oh hello Myrien, posted right in the timegap where my posting box was opening i see. Glad you share the opinion

[Midnight_Carnival]

That's right, you tell him!

Mind you, when it comes to the mundane world, it must be goverened by laws which are coherent and consistent. Evolution could take place before and after magic has entered the world. Adding magic does not imediately erase all the laws, it merely adds new ones which take precidence over the old ones.

[StDrake]

Indeed it does not, actually, I'd expect magic to attempt utilising natural laws, but breaking solid holes in their consistency. That means as much as that we should not limit our discussions on wesnothian issues to pure a scientific approach.
Talking about spirits is clearly nonscientific, so we can't consider a purely scientific approach when considering how they affect the material.
Linking to the discussion on orc genetics (which could use breaking a few holes in it as well)..i'd consider it a mistake taking into account the solid line of that thread. Magic does not need to limit to being a player altering evolution by common means by which any material player could do just as well. We could just as well see how it produces a nature-sourcless kind of radiation which, as we know, is quite mutagenic and force an ordered course of the mutations. If you consider it that doesn't even require direct posession, merely being way too close for comfort.

[AI]

Science is the study of observable phenomena in a specific way that helps filter out human biases.
In the world we're speaking of, magic is an observable phenomenon, and therefore in the domain of science.

Incidentally, the way the magi of Alduin work seems to be similar to that of D&D 'wizards', making it a scientific approach to the art of *performing* magic.


Not to digress from the original topic, but wesnoth appears to be in a lawful universe, that simply has some extra laws that supersede the ones we are familiar with in some cases.
No need to go define everything that happens in an exact manner, but on the other end, don't throw out consistency just because magic exists.

off-topic, left in for thread continuity reasons

So, let's get back on topic and discuss orcish polymorphism and genetics, if there's anything left to discuss.

[StDrake]

Actually that would be off topic, the one on orcish polymorphism and genetics is here http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 9&start=15

[AI]

Yeah, I noticed my case of "wrong topic" a few hours ago (just before you posted in fact), but couldn't get to a computer before now. Oops.

[Midnight_Carnival]

Magic operating on its own set of laws is well and good. But do you have any ideas what those laws are and how they work? (Actually I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that, next thing I know a Silver Magew will teleport in and say "yes!") -I'm asking because we are talking about how magic can alter or even give rise to life-forms. If magic does operate according to its own set of laws, well and good, but if we can't understand them then I for one would advocate we treat magic as an unscientific phenomenon.

Also, spirits need not be inteligent, the need not be minds, or have minds they could just do the things they do because it's in their nature to do so, which is why I asked about the spirits being attracted to certain elements or whatever you said earlier.

[Myrien]

I think that a non-thinking spirit that is simply drawn to an element would fit the following theory - creatures in Wesnoth and surrounding lands being alive and sentient, but not possesing any magical ability. Then, the spirits are less creators of life or at least animators/life-bringing beings, but simply beings that brought magic to the world.
This is the reason why I prefer the spirits actually giving life to lifeless matter - it fits a creation myth better. The other theory does not contain creation as such, as in origin of life, which I think a spirit should be, if the two realms and the merging of the two are central aspects of creation.