hierophany | INBOX (noctium)

I'll add it to the network's encyclopedia, perhaps.

Once I finish making the articles I'm working on.

You're adding articles to the network's encyclopedia?

It contained no information on baseball, Sunshine Princess Miracle-Chan or the digestive processes of frogs.

Baseball.

[Uh-oh.]

You would think that the concept of 'hit ball with stick' would be universal, but apparently not.

So, like with microwaves, you're preparing the masses for baseball because the local environment hasn't done it adequately.

...

Are you familiar with "Senbon Nokku"?

As a training philosophy, or as a specific training regimen? I'm familiar with both.

As a training regimen it refers to the practice of having players catch balls until they pass out from exhaustion. It's a commonly used training method by most professional teams.

As a philosophy, it refers to the practice of training in any discipline until you can do so no further for physical exhaustion or risk of injury which might compromise ones' capabilities.

Don't add it to the encyclopedia.

[ ... ]

Okay.

Is there anything else that I ought to omit?

You aren't going to ask why?

Either you have a good reason or you're jealously guarding the secrets of baseball for some sort of nefarious purpose, possibly involving your wanting to engineer the perfect baseball player so that you can start a team that dominates every game once people here figure out what baseball is.

Which is exactly the kind of nonsense I would like a part in.

I don't agree with the training method.

Why even make someone aware of it, if they're otherwise oblivious. So much the better to just exempt it from public recognition.

Very well, then.

[ A twenty minute delay. ]

Senbon Nokku is the name of a musician from the mid-1920s. His work is relatively obscure, but was influential enough at the time that he is notable enough for an encyclopedia entry. As he made some statements that are controversial to a modern audience, his page has been flagged to ensure any changes are carefully moderated.

[ Yes, this is an abuse of power. But it means that nobody else can make an article about the topic either. ]

[This is literally one of the most touching things anyone has ever done for her. How utterly fucking sad is that. She's going to need to take a minute and just. Sit. Think about this.

Why? He has to suspect something. Has to know more than he's letting on. Noriaki Kakyoin would never be so immediately willing to do something generous for someone who really hasn't given him much reason at all to give a damn.

Is it to hold it over her head? An advantage to use later? What is he doing?]

You'll monitor the page?

I have to. I doubt they'll be able to find anyone else who knows enough about the topic to moderate it.

[ Because it's a topic that he just made up. ]

That's true. The only thing I know about him, aside from the controversy, is that he didn't even want to be a musician, really.

Maybe he wanted to play baseball.

Wanting to play baseball was the most controversial thing he ever did.

Who the fuck wants to play baseball. Playing baseball is the least interesting thing about baseball.

What do you consider the most interesting thing about baseball?

Modelling different possibilities. You can take the numbers from any given game and change any element and have a fairly accurate understanding of how the game would have gone, with that change. Then you can take those updated results and apply them to the entire league. To a player's lifetime performance. To a team's performance throughout its entire time in being. You can make one day in the 1940s slightly more windy and understand how that would change the entire selection of teams as we know them in the present.

It's the closest most people are ever going to get to knowing what it would be like to make one little change in the past and watch the results cascade outward.

You make it sound similar to chess. I think I've heard the two compared before, actually. As sports go.

You're referencing the butterfly effect, aren't you? In chaos theory.

Yes. There are few other places in real life where such meticulous records are kept and where the results of any possible change are so easily quantifiable.

Baseball provides an environment where you can choose to place the movement of a proverbial butterfly's wings at any given place and understand every change that would come about as a result. The actual sport is uninteresting in comparison.

...

I like to replay chess games. Meticulous records are kept of every move from every game, so any game can be reproduced in its entirety by anyone with access to those move lists.

Russian Champion Boris Spassky blundered on move nineteen of game eight in the chess world championships of 1972. It's recorded in history forever as the reason he lost that game of the match. One single mistaken move of a pawn.

Chess is fascinating in that respect. For nearly every set of positions on the board there is a truly correct play. If you want a game where you can model any change perfectly, that would be it.

I've never been able to make it keep my interest, I admit. I think perhaps because of that perfection. The only places you'll ever find to change are human errors. You don't have a pawn with an old leg injury that the cold weather exacerbates. A knight who lost his horse in the last battle, riding one who doesn't trust him so completely.

The most interesting thing you could do in chess is to model a complete beginner playing a master.

It's one of the only games that allows both the players and the observers to "predict the future". Because of the existence of correct play, it's possible to already know move sixty-four when the game has only advanced as far as move thirty-six.

What's truly fascinating about it, though, is how all of that predictive quality relies on assumptions of correctness. Skilled players approach uniformity as they all simultaneously pursue the perfect answer.

In other words, the complete beginner might actually stand a chance against the master. The master far outclasses the beginner in skill. But the novice has the advantage of creativity.

Precisely. If the only butterflies there are are human error, then you want someone making as many errors as possible if you want to change anything. They'll still lose most games. Sometimes the errors they make will be the really stupid kind of errors.

But it'll become possible for them to win. A beginner would win a tiny percentage of games against a master. A skilled player playing a master would win none.

Boris Spassky lost because he put one pawn in the wrong place. It wasn't because it was in the wrong place. It was because it was only one.

(no subject)

freshprints - 2021-03-14 00:24 (UTC) - Expand