The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Anyone else... disappointed? [PT/BG spoilers]
Mira:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on November 25, 2020, 04:04:26 AM ---The problem with Free Will as Jim uses it, is that it is contrived and not subject to analysis. Thousands of choices got Harry to whatever point he gets to. By the time you get to whatever the event is, there really aren't any choices left to make, assuming that Dresden is who he is. You've already made them prior to that instant. Which is what Uriel is saying.
Carry on.
--- End quote ---
Yup, "the moving finger writes..." Or if you put your foot in a river you will never put it in the same water again..
Wicked Woodpecker of West:
--- Quote ---I've repeatedly said some number of universes are created that are less than all possible choices. To oversimplify my head canon, there are two universes created by every act of free will. One where the actor chooses to act one way and another where they choose to act in a different way. Each choice is a choice to act beyond and in opposition to what an otherwise accurate deterministic model of the Dresdenverse would have predicted.
--- End quote ---
I get it, Alias. I just disagree - for me such model solves nothing.
Free will against deterministic model - as a split branch - that I can get it. But free will annuling deterministic branch - nope, not really. It's just pointless. Especially since Mab pointed out that destiny is important and branching new timeline from it - is very dangerous.
Which to me suggest original deterministic model of each branch - survives each time, when choice made another one.
Also it assumes each time there is possibility to choice there are two options - both of which are unnatural. So not one choice against own nature, but also for some reason it's dark twin.
Don't buy it. And I see no reason, not even good clue to believe it works that way in DF.
If anything I see clues Universe Prime shall always exists on track, but if you made choice against destiny you shall land into new branch - new dangerous and unpredictable branch.
--- Quote ---Determinists would say that the appearance of choice is an illusion and all biology, reason, thinking, etc. just boils down to physics.
--- End quote ---
Now if each choice in Dresden Files results in all possible choices then indeed it's kinda deterministic.
But removing option 0 as you propose only limits scale of determinism - still if desting says A and you will say B, then A stops to exist, but for some reason C, D, and E are created that can be even further from A and B, and even less plausible... for some reason.
It's like - natural choice is to run, but you stay and fight - you create option B. OK, but why other options are created? What option C when you join your enemies which is even less plausible? Why would it happen at all.
--- Quote ---What if there are thousands of possible choices and two universes result?
--- End quote ---
But we know there are much more universes due to WOJ.
For me choice POSSIBLE is choice that your Reason, your mind, your intellect put on a scales before your Will to act.
Unless such is not presented - you just ran on determined way as you cannot do another thing.
I can imagine stabbing my entire family to death with a knife, but I'd not say I made time-splitting choice by not doing it, as it was mere figment of imagination not something I considered as viable choice.
If not damn - my dopplegangers must be some Jim the Ripper of Multiverse by now. Dammit
--- Quote ---The problem with Free Will as Jim uses it, is that it is contrived and not subject to analysis. Thousands of choices got Harry to whatever point he gets to. By the time you get to whatever the event is, there really aren't any choices left to make, assuming that Dresden is who he is. You've already made them prior to that instant. Which is what Uriel is saying.
--- End quote ---
But we now discuss Dresden Prime perspective but how free will works for multiverse and how mechanism of timeline split works.
Sure previous choices in any timeline are PAST.
morriswalters:
Mirror Mirror is supposed to be about evil Harry killing other Harry's. Or am I mistaken? That would imply many splits.
Jim has implied a statistical theory of branching. When Harry learns the name of Nemesis Mother Summer says that it creates many new possibilities.
--- Quote ---Calculation and thought flickered through those green eyes, faster than I could follow. “Ah, yes. I see,” Mother Summer said. “So many new futures unwinding.” “Too many bright ones,” Mother Winter said sullenly. “Even you must think better that than empty night.”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 329). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---
Vadderung describes another form of branching, that of the paradox..
--- Quote ---I grunted. “So if I go back in time and kill my grandfather, what happens?” “He beats you senseless, I suspect,” Vadderung said, his gaze direct. Oh, man. Vadderung knew about Ebenezar. Which meant that either he was higher in the old man’s circle of trust than I was, or he had access to an astoundingly scary pool of information. “You know what I mean,” I said. “Paradox? Universe goes poof?” “If it works like that, I’ve never seen it, as evidenced by the fact that . . .” He spread his hands. “Here it is. I suspect a different form of apocalypse happens.” I frowned. “Like what?” “A twinned universe,” Vadderung said. “A new parallel reality, identical except for that event. One in which you never existed, and one in which you failed to kill your grandfather.” I pursed my lips. “That . . . doesn’t really end well for me in either case.”
Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 215). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---
So between what Mother Summer showed Harry and what Vadderung theorizes that there could be thousands of branches with Harry in them. My internal canon would be that to get to those other branches that they would have to be close to Harry Prime to be able to get there. So for instance, there might be a universe where Harry never manifested his magic, but is unreachable since it's a low probability event and is too far from this timeline. There might be a universe where Susan never became aware of the events at the party, she never becomes infected, and the whole event never triggers the Vampire war.
I cribbed this from the Long Earth, among other sources. Otherwise Free Will and Determinism are just something for philosophers to argue about and for best selling authors to build fictional frame works with.
Bad Alias:
--- Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on November 25, 2020, 02:24:36 PM ---Also it assumes each time there is possibility to choice there are two options - both of which are unnatural. So not one choice against own nature, but also for some reason it's dark twin.
--- End quote ---
Why only two choices and why is one a "dark twin." I guess one is almost always going to result in an at least marginally better world than the other because it's hard to imagine to choices with different but equal results.
--- Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on November 25, 2020, 02:24:36 PM ---It's like - natural choice is to run, but you stay and fight - you create option B. OK, but why other options are created? What option C when you join your enemies which is even less plausible? Why would it happen at all.
--- End quote ---
Let's say it's one's nature to freeze. If one were to choose to act instead, they can choose to run, fight, or talk one's way out of the situation. If one chooses to run, they can choose to run in any of 360 degrees in all sorts of different manners.
--- Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on November 25, 2020, 02:24:36 PM ---But we know there are much more universes due to WOJ.
--- End quote ---
But we don't know how many universes result from a choice.
--- Quote from: morriswalters on November 25, 2020, 03:07:52 PM ---Mirror Mirror is supposed to be about evil Harry killing other Harry's. Or am I mistaken? That would imply many splits.
--- End quote ---
Correct. Jim has also explicitly stated that there are a bunch of realities.
I just had a thought about everything Harry does in GP being in character or in line with his nature. There's one thing he did that I think wasn't. Telling Susan that he loved her. I don't see how not telling her results in Harry surviving, but I really think if anything was out of character for Harry, it was that. Recall that Michael had to drag it out of Harry at the very beginning of the book. He didn't want to say that he loved Susan to Michael, who he told about Elaine.
Dina:
No, I don't think MM is The One. I understood that MM Harry would summon a Harry (which will be ours) to act as a decoy. Only one, as far as I understood.
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