12-03-2013, 08:08 PM
Kalen just looked at Grace funny the last time she tried explaining it. The data-lover's view of entropy is, like most of her understanding, math-based. And while she knows a thing or two about math, a thing or two about entropy with the little e, she had trouble figuring out how to apply that to the Data. Kalen suggested that she ask Trent about the subject, but he's a Hermetic she managed to annoy on their first meeting, and it's not been a great few months. She's had about enough of trying to figure people out when they growl at her.
She knows that it's not them, it's her. It's some change that took place, the oppressive brokenness or nervousness that hounds her. But still. It's hard for her to be like, "Oh yes, Dr. Trent, man, sorry that during our first meeting I insulted you. Now teach me shit. Because I'm bored." That sounds like it would go over so well.
So she studies on her own. She spends her nights curled up on the Chantry library's couches, with books that suit her.
When she finds her inspiration, it is in a book. Destruction and prophesy are only emergent behaviors of the concept, really. Most people, they think of entropy, and they think of decay, or of a broken water glass that cannot be put back together again. Grace thinks of it in terms of data density.
And as for the connection to the Code of reality? Let's go back to that glass. Imagine, if you will, the perfect water glass. It's got a perfectly circular base, and perfectly cylindrical walls. There are no lumps in the glass, which is also perfectly uniform. It's perfect.
You could describe each and every atom of the glass, and thus be able to recreate it, sure. That description would be long. Millions of trillions of entries long. Or, you could compress that information down to the description of its circular base, the description of its cylindrical sides, a formula for the glass. Three entries. In other words, our perfect glass has very low data density. Very low entropy. It can be entirely described by three pieces of data.
Now, drop the glass on the floor.
Note, how it now contains so much more information! Note how there is now a need to describe triangles and edges, curves and stress, fractalline fractures branching out like trees.
But, one could also, say, inscribe a poem onto the glass instead. Something that means far more than bare words, something just as densely populated with information and just as purposeful as a shattering.
It's almost as if creation and destruction wear the same face. Like some universal rule of existence, the world hums along because it isn't perfect, because there are cracks, because it contains Data. The Data itself is sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrible, but Entropy cares not for horrible or beautiful, it simply is. And if it were not, neither would we. We could choose not to decay, to crystallize into some perfect thing, but then we would be just as empty of meaning as that perfect glass, the one without a poem, the one without anything to say except for its dimensions.
The analogues to computing, well, they're numerous. One can predict what's to come next, by dialing down the Entropy of the subject (lower entropy means one can predict easier, like your phone keyboard figuring out what word you mean to type). One can look for the auspicious (by breaking entities down, categorizing them, submitting them to a search engine). One can erase and destroy (by filling a thing with so much data its original simplicity cannot be reconstructed). But one can also perfect. Can make a thing so information-less that it smooths and becomes easy to calculate, resistant to the gathering of faults.
For now, Grace has earned the ability to assign numbers to things. These Entropy levels, measured in bits, can be used to discern fault or perfection. They can be sorted, and passed through a filter, looking for something, so long as it's vague enough. But she can't change the numbers, not yet. Like most things in her new world, she can see but not touch.
Still, it is a comfort. That instead of breaking, instead of letting the cracks that she can feel running through her psyche rip her apart, there is a chance that she can instead craft those cracks into a poem. There are worse things than dying, and Grace has been there. Here lies the choice. To fall down and break, never to be reborn, or to use this and make herself into something less perfect, and more beautiful.
She knows that it's not them, it's her. It's some change that took place, the oppressive brokenness or nervousness that hounds her. But still. It's hard for her to be like, "Oh yes, Dr. Trent, man, sorry that during our first meeting I insulted you. Now teach me shit. Because I'm bored." That sounds like it would go over so well.
So she studies on her own. She spends her nights curled up on the Chantry library's couches, with books that suit her.
When she finds her inspiration, it is in a book. Destruction and prophesy are only emergent behaviors of the concept, really. Most people, they think of entropy, and they think of decay, or of a broken water glass that cannot be put back together again. Grace thinks of it in terms of data density.
And as for the connection to the Code of reality? Let's go back to that glass. Imagine, if you will, the perfect water glass. It's got a perfectly circular base, and perfectly cylindrical walls. There are no lumps in the glass, which is also perfectly uniform. It's perfect.
You could describe each and every atom of the glass, and thus be able to recreate it, sure. That description would be long. Millions of trillions of entries long. Or, you could compress that information down to the description of its circular base, the description of its cylindrical sides, a formula for the glass. Three entries. In other words, our perfect glass has very low data density. Very low entropy. It can be entirely described by three pieces of data.
Now, drop the glass on the floor.
Note, how it now contains so much more information! Note how there is now a need to describe triangles and edges, curves and stress, fractalline fractures branching out like trees.
But, one could also, say, inscribe a poem onto the glass instead. Something that means far more than bare words, something just as densely populated with information and just as purposeful as a shattering.
It's almost as if creation and destruction wear the same face. Like some universal rule of existence, the world hums along because it isn't perfect, because there are cracks, because it contains Data. The Data itself is sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrible, but Entropy cares not for horrible or beautiful, it simply is. And if it were not, neither would we. We could choose not to decay, to crystallize into some perfect thing, but then we would be just as empty of meaning as that perfect glass, the one without a poem, the one without anything to say except for its dimensions.
The analogues to computing, well, they're numerous. One can predict what's to come next, by dialing down the Entropy of the subject (lower entropy means one can predict easier, like your phone keyboard figuring out what word you mean to type). One can look for the auspicious (by breaking entities down, categorizing them, submitting them to a search engine). One can erase and destroy (by filling a thing with so much data its original simplicity cannot be reconstructed). But one can also perfect. Can make a thing so information-less that it smooths and becomes easy to calculate, resistant to the gathering of faults.
For now, Grace has earned the ability to assign numbers to things. These Entropy levels, measured in bits, can be used to discern fault or perfection. They can be sorted, and passed through a filter, looking for something, so long as it's vague enough. But she can't change the numbers, not yet. Like most things in her new world, she can see but not touch.
Still, it is a comfort. That instead of breaking, instead of letting the cracks that she can feel running through her psyche rip her apart, there is a chance that she can instead craft those cracks into a poem. There are worse things than dying, and Grace has been there. Here lies the choice. To fall down and break, never to be reborn, or to use this and make herself into something less perfect, and more beautiful.