Cantr and Science

[LittleSoul]

I am wondering something. Since cantr is a simulation of real life, is it safe to assume that it has the same properties as the real world, such as gravity, mass, atoms etc?
If yes, would it be suitable then to suggest roleplaying items like microscopes, chemistry sets, and things of that nature so that characters can discover these properties and document them in their research, so that the world will actually have a scientific understanding of how these properties work?

Because at the moment, there is none, and people are just walking around not knowing anything about how the world operates besides their own assumptions or not caring.

[Shaderon]

I'm not sure it would have the same properties, for instance you can't just create a body in our world, in Cantr a live person just appears from nowhere in a "spawning". We can role-play jumping and we can role-play flying, it's just that for it to be believed everyone has to role-play it. We just all automatically role-play that gravity exists because that's what we all believe. I don't believe anywhere has anyone said "Characters are not allowed to do anything that you yourself can't". I have seen a character do flips and advanced gymnastics, I have toyed with the idea of telekinesis (dragging from and to buildings) and I myself have swum in the sea although nowhere does it say the sea is made of salty water.... why can't it just be air? Why can't it be space?

RP tends to be more believable if everyone agrees on the rules and if the rules aren't stated I think we all tend to assume the same rules as real life.... but why? Why can't we have a place where atoms don't exist? That the rules are different? Energy doesn't equal mass and things are not easily nailed down? I'd love to see a bit of fantasy RP'd but i think it would be hard to make stick. I myself don't understand chemistry so I wouldn't understand other people's "findings" and someone may "find" things that others "find" different. e.g. "oh look through the microscope we have tiny little worlds on our skin" ....
It would be interesting to see what people would come up with though.

Excuse me please I've had beer.

[LittleSoul]

So the answer is no, it does not have the same properties as real life because there are no set rules.

I just was curious. I find it interesting that weeks ago no one knew if there was a sun or not, and now not only do we have a sun but also weather to boot, because some people before that would assume there was a sun and others not. It's all belief until it's a mechanic. I think I understand now. I would still find it interesting to have research equipment, even if the findings wouldn't matter because any findings would be different person to person.

Thanks for the answer, Shaderon.

[Shaderon]

Yes if findings are different from person to person that would have interesting connotations....... I tend to try and not get involved in religious discussions because it's all faith... no one can prove anything, and i think this would be the same, but it would be fun to see two different people come up with two different answers to something and both of them "prove it". That would definitely be interesting. Hmm I already have theories on how that could be explained! *mischievous look*

[Doug R.]

One thing is measurable in Cantr though: Mass=Volume, which means everything in Cantr has the same density (1), since density = m/v. As such, Cantr should be essentially weightless. Cantrians should be floating about like fish float in water. We assume that they are not, because we live in a world of differing densities, but I challenge everyone to really think about this and come up with examples that would prove me wrong. I mean, I've sailed my ship over land several times already...

[computaertist]

Air has no mass or else we'd be able to make balloons with just rubber. Therefore everything sinks through air.

Unless someone implements balloons...

EDIT: I mean there's no project that uses air, and it's not a gather-able resource. There for you can't weigh it because it has less mass than everything else. It doesn't have to be balloons.

[Shaderon]

OMG!!!! None of my characters are breathing air!!! They are going to dieeeeeeeee

No they must be or they couldn't talk.... or could they? The brain interprets whatever is sensed as a living world around us, this isn't necessarily what is there, that's why sometimes people witness different happenings, the brain fills in gaps... so Cantrians might NOT be talking, they might be telepathic and be able to target that with whispers... that's why they can whisper to people in other buildings when both have an open window..... I'm on a roll here!!!

Yes! there's no air in Cantr.

I must stop RPing any breathing, coughing etc immediately.

(I read too many books)

[computaertist]

There is wind. What is that made of?

[Shaderon]

Damn.

Back to the drawing board. I thought I had that figured then. I'm still trying to find an explanation for whispering between buildings with no one else hearing. I had an explanation.... then you ruin it.

*sulks*

[computaertist]

Damn.

Back to the drawing board. I thought I had that figured then. I'm still trying to find an explanation for whispering between buildings with no one else hearing. I had an explanation.... then you ruin it.

*sulks*

*smiles lopsidedly*

For what it's worth, I believe in telepathy and telekinesis in Cantr.

I just don't RP it for fear of offending unnecessarily.

[Shaderon]

Yea a likeminded.... lets do it... sod offending people... difficult to do though without going OOC, or making people think you are.



Frustrating.

I understand the OOC rule, but it's highly frustrating not being able to RP Telepathy.

[Swingerzetta]

Well, clearly there is air in cantr, because of the mentioned travelling of sound waves and wind. But it can be assumed that it's LESS dense than everything else. Like, say, half dense. So we must say that WEIGHT=volume, where weight is measured as the force needed to lift something in air.

[saztronic]

I love this thread.

I think what is so powerful about Cantr, is that it is a collective hallucination, in a way that few other games, maybe any other games, really are. And life is also a collective hallucination. Both are played out in real time, and in interaction with other people, and with certain rules in place, but with far less rules than people actually realize. And I think that limited though it is, frustrating as it can be, at it's best, Cantr really is a fairly good micro-simulation of life experience.

There are so many things in RL that people take for granted, but have no reality outside of belief, outside of collective hallucination. A commonly cited one is money, especially paper money, or even more esoterically, money and wealth that exist nowhere outside of digital bank accounts. The whole world runs, is predicated on, people's faith that money exists, has meaning, can be counted on to be worth such and such. I give you a dyed piece of paper, you give me a sandwhich. It's a very odd thing. With no offense to the religious among us, the power of religion is another example, one that has shaped histories, societies, lives, sparked wars and inquisitions and mass suicides and faith healings...

Imagination is a powerful thing. Stories are powerful. I'm not sure anything is really, more powerful. Stories shape our lives, our lives take the shape of stories, narratives, that we tell to others in just such a way, and no other. Cantr is like that.

The boundaries of what can happen in Cantr, should not be so limited I think, but it requires incredible skill, or deftness, to inject into the collective hallucination an element that others will resist. The higher the resistance, the more skill it requires. Of course you can fly in Cantr... the only barrier is whether you can make people -believe- you can fly. Are you that good? Do you write so persuasively, so compellingly, so true, that you can shift the collective hallucination in your direction? I believe it can be done, but that doesn't mean it's easy. It couldn't be done on a whim, let's put it that way. The resistance to the idea of defying gravity would be extremely strong, swift, collective, and harsh. But it can absolutely be done. Anything is possible.

Years and years ago, I had a mute character, who lived in a tomato patch. He cared for those plants, and they grew tall as trees, and made a thicket, like a jungle, that he lived in, and would peek out of, and the fruits of those vines were as big as your head. I invested a lot of time in trying to make this real for everyone in that town, so that they would start to walk around the area, or treat gathering tomatoes differently, or maybe, add to the image with flourishes or embellishments of their own. I never really succeeded.

But I have gotten much, much better at such things over the years... I love the idea of Cantr as story, and seeing how far I can push that story. I haven't tried TK or flight, but I have influenced societies in ways they don't even know, changed the trajectory of their entire history, with a nudge here, a comment there, a well crafted story carefully told.

Far too much in Cantr is just accepted wisdom, common sense thinking... roads, for example, which have very odd properties nothing like real roads do, but nobody ever really talks about it. Buildings and vehicles and even bodies that never decay. So many things... where are the stories in Cantr that explain these things? Where are the stories in Cantr that challenge them, and challenge peoples' thinking about them, and shift the collective hallucination in new directions? There are far too few such things going on, given the caliber of imagination and talent on display from our little group of players.

So please.... fly, telekinete (obviously the verb form), grow a third limb, spirit walk in your sleep, invent a waterfall, walk on water... oh, if you can pull it off!

[Doug R.]

I love your post, I really do, but I can tell you, first hand, that things that you would define as causing "high resistance" instead cause apathy. The more someone pushes the barriers of the hallucination, the more people simply pretend they don't notice. They're just a freak, a blip on the radar, generating lines of rp text that others don't really want to read. To create resistance, you need friction, but you can't generate friction in a vacuum.


Still love your post, though.

[saztronic]

I can only take this as a challenge...

Flying, for example. I am dead sure I could make a whole town believe my char could fly. It can't be done on a whim, but I could see how I could do it over the course of two IG decades.

Of course, writing about it here on the forum only makes it harder... people would be on the lookout.

You need the right town. You need to understand your audience. You need to calculate the right message, delivered in the right way, over the right period of time. It's small 'a' advocacy. It's creative writing on a grand scale. Life of Pi... you have to make the reader believe that the fantastical explanation is the true one... that anything less would be a sham, a disappointment, counter to that in us which yearns toward the miracle.

Sometimes I wonder what I could do in Cantr if I didn't have a real life, preventing me from devoting the majority of my time to it. Not that I would change that... it just makes it more difficult to do the grand thing. Makes it hard even to be a town leader, which requires more alertness and organization than most of my chars can have. Let alone flying.

But sure, it could be done.