Completed Yet More Study [Castor]

Castor and Tsaba take a closer look at Auristics

(This is a thread from Mizahar's fantasy role playing forum. Why don't you register today? This message is not shown when you are logged in. Come roleplay with us, it's fun!)

Center of scholarly knowledge and shipwrighting, Zeltiva is a port city unlike any other in Mizahar. [Lore]

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Tsaba on June 19th, 2013, 5:43 am

"Hmm... well, I do have some funds. But they're likely to run out quickly if they go to pet projects like this. I suppose when I get a job I could fund it with wages, Nuit tend to have lower upkeep costs than humans... although I might need to buy new bodies later..." Tsaba trailed off as she spoke. She'd never had to handle financing something before; that was Craun's job. Fliers, though... she could make those herself, easily enough. She had plenty of paper. "Perhaps we'll meet some other Aurists in classes? If we could... well, find a way to use Auristics to detect Aurists, this whole thing would be easier." Although that still wouldn't solve the incentive problem. Tsaba wished that she had something more to offer. If they could find... some kind of Aurist who was obsessed with Nuits or something, she could offer herself as a subject in return... but it was unlikely they'd find that, and certainly not in numbers high enough to be useful to them.

"I guess randomly casing West Street is the best way to go about looking outside university," she sighed. "Provided we can find a subtle way to do it. I can make some flyers for the campus."
Thanks to Abstract for the lovely boxcode!
Tsaba
Player
 
Posts: 367
Words: 200581
Joined roleplay: May 26th, 2013, 10:57 am
Race: Nuit
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 2
Featured Thread (1) Overlored (1)

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Castor Riley on June 21st, 2013, 9:40 am

"I also have some mizas set aside, so I think we might be able to cover it, between the two of us," said Castor with a shrug. "Finding Aurists will definitely be a challenge, even using all these methods to find some" he mused aloud. "What do you think would be a fair amount to offer as an incentive?" Even though, if they got too many subjects, this would drain his funds rather quickly.

Castor then moved on to a more interesting subject "So, Tsaba, if we manage to find all the subjects we need, what kind of tests would you like to perform? What should our research focus on?" He asked, curiosity and excitement clearly visible in his expression.
Always open for a thread! Feel free to PM me!
Mailbox
User avatar
Castor Riley
Player
 
Posts: 224
Words: 127927
Joined roleplay: April 23rd, 2013, 11:59 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Tsaba on June 24th, 2013, 6:12 pm

"I don't really know how much we should offer," Tsaba frowned. "Subjects weren't paid on Sahova. They were just sort of... assigned. I'm not really familiar with the value of Mizas on the mainland yet. As for experiments..." she hesitated. She had a lot of ideas for experiments. A lot. But most of them were beyond the scope of her abilities, or their resources.

"It would be nice to have several Aurists try to describe the same object," she said, starting with the least complicated of her ideas. "I mean, I know that it's not too hard to collate reports of how different Aurists see, say, a magical shield, or a person... but what if they all examined the same shield, or person, or even table, within minutes of each other? That way we'd know that all differences are indeed sensory variation and not sample variation. Then, of course, we could change the baseline state... break the table, cool the person's body... and see how that affected different Aurists' perceptions." She also wanted to know what she looked like to other Aurists, compared to what a human looked like. But that was just a side curiosity. "I also want to use Auristics on somebody performing magic. Imagine two Aurists performing Auristics on each other... would they see the application of djed the other person is using? Does that change, depending on the competence of each Aurist? If nothing else, we may garner tips from other Aurists that could prove informative."
Thanks to Abstract for the lovely boxcode!
Tsaba
Player
 
Posts: 367
Words: 200581
Joined roleplay: May 26th, 2013, 10:57 am
Race: Nuit
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 2
Featured Thread (1) Overlored (1)

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Castor Riley on June 24th, 2013, 10:05 pm

"Hmm, how about 10 gold mizas per experiment participated in? The low availability of suitable subjects and the inherent danger of personal magic practice, even in such a relatively safe discipline probably warrants that much." Castor suggested, remaining open to any counter-suggestions.

Castor listened attentively until she'd finished speaking, considering her ideas enthusiastically. They were simple, but who ever said simple wasn't effective? Simple would actually be best in order for them to reach any validatable conclusions. "Sounds great! Only thing, I'd suggest we have them look at the objects or people at the exact same time; even a small variation of circumstances could vastly change an aura, particularly when dealing with sentient beings. To achieve the most accurate and unbiased results, I'd suggest we keep the object hidden until the beginning of the experiment. Under a cloth, or behind a curtain perhaps? Then, we ask our subjects to use their Auristics simultaneously and write down their impressions, so as not to influence each other with their perceptions. What do you think?" He ended, excitedly. He was already imagining the different ways they could set up a research area to accommodate such circumstances as he waited for Tsaba's response.
Always open for a thread! Feel free to PM me!
Mailbox
User avatar
Castor Riley
Player
 
Posts: 224
Words: 127927
Joined roleplay: April 23rd, 2013, 11:59 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Tsaba on June 28th, 2013, 4:06 pm

"That sounds reasonable," Tsaba shrugged. In truth, she had no idea how much money they should offer, so she was happy to go along with whatever Castor suggested. "We're going to run out of money quick if we're not careful, though." If only she had more skills that other Aurists might be interested in, she could trade training for assistance. "And your suggestions also make sense. The obvious problem, of course, is that there's no way to divorce differences in perception between subjects from differences in description -- I mean, if you and I were to look at a mundane object using normal sight and write down a description, we'd probably write wildly different things, despite having perceived the same thing." Should they get the subjects to do exactly that, to get a feel for their different styles? No, descriptiveness was far too complex for a baseline like that to be useful. "I suppose we'll be supplying ink and parchment to, so we'll need to budget for that. You know, if I was really good at Auristics, I bet I could try to get the university to employ me and then they might pay for all this stuff. But for now I guess we're on our own.

"We should probably get some basic details on how our subjects use Auristics, too -- what they use it for, what it looks or feels like, whether they augment it with anything else, how they learned it... I mean, I'm pretty sure that if I wasn't taught by a healer, I'd notice completely different things."
Thanks to Abstract for the lovely boxcode!
Tsaba
Player
 
Posts: 367
Words: 200581
Joined roleplay: May 26th, 2013, 10:57 am
Race: Nuit
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 2
Featured Thread (1) Overlored (1)

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Castor Riley on June 28th, 2013, 9:51 pm

Castor was brought down from his reveries and plan-making when Tsaba mentioned the hole in their research; how to seperate descriptive styles and foci. It would be of little use to them if all of the perceptions the Aurists provided them were of different aspects of the object, as they would be unable to properly compare them. He mulled over the question thoughtfully as he listened to her.

"Yes, I agree. That would be necessary for us to understand their use of Auristics. It would also be great if we could examine your Master's use of the magic; the differences between him and you, his student, might be very enlightening" he said with a sigh, knowing that such an opportunity was highly unlikely to present itself.

A few ticks later and while Castor was considering all the problems of their research and funding, Castor suddenly exclaimed, leaning forward excitedly "Wait a tick! Tsaba you're a genius! You're not a professor at the University, but there are plenty of those around! If we can get one of them to sign off on our proposal, we could probably gain the necessary funding. All we'd need is the right professor..." Castor had yet to meet any of the Magic professors at the University, seeing as his previous term's courses had all been from West Wing subjects. However, he felt sure they were bound to find at least one willing to support their project. If they figured it out. "Of course, for that we'd need to have a clear and performable research plan," he ended, slumping back down into his chair. "Is there a way to limit the divergence of the Auristic perceptions?" He wondered, both to Tsaba and to himself.
Always open for a thread! Feel free to PM me!
Mailbox
User avatar
Castor Riley
Player
 
Posts: 224
Words: 127927
Joined roleplay: April 23rd, 2013, 11:59 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Tsaba on June 29th, 2013, 3:52 pm

"Does the university even have an Auristics professor?" Tsaba wondered. "Or any professor interested in Auristics, really..." she looked hard at Castor for a moment. "You know an awful lot about Auristics for a non-Aurist. Who taught you? They'd have to be interested. Unless you just woke up with a burning desire to study Auristics one day?

"I don't know if we can limit that sort of variation," she added thoughtfully, "unless they're all very visual and we just have them draw them out. I was thinking, maybe we could have the subjects describe the sight of an object, as a kind of standard for their writing? I don't know how helpful it would be... but it occurs to me that if we do it on a regular basis, especially for people who don't use Auristics much, and their mundane description style starts to change with their Auritics, that would be an interesting thing to note in itself. Also, if we can influence their physical perception without telling them -- really emphasising color, for instance -- would that affect their Auristics descriptions, or Auristic perceptions?

"Being able to influence Auristic perceptions, either to uniform or diversify them, is a great practical-use end goal, although it might be beyond our scope for now," she added. "In Sunberth, we used to know this one blind guy. And sometimes, Craun would call him in and ask him to listen to patients' hearts or smell their breath. He said that the man's different perception of the world made his perspective useful -- not as good as a sighted doctor's, of course, but good enough that when added together, they were better than two sighted people. There might be potential in altering Auristic perception for similar effects... although I'm really drifting from the point here, since that's a little beyond our abilities. I guess that we're just going to have to deal with differences in description and use the individuals' descriptive habits to correct for them, if we can."
Thanks to Abstract for the lovely boxcode!
Tsaba
Player
 
Posts: 367
Words: 200581
Joined roleplay: May 26th, 2013, 10:57 am
Race: Nuit
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 2
Featured Thread (1) Overlored (1)

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Castor Riley on July 1st, 2013, 8:33 am

Castor considered Tsaba's question for a few ticks before responding. "I don't know about an Auristics professor... But Auristics is the perception of Djed, so a better understanding of one means a better understanding of the other, so I think we could argue our case to any magic professor, really," Castor replied, hopefully. "As for me, I got involved for a rather peculiar reason; as I was travelling from Syliras to Zeltiva, I came upon a man who wanted me to use my library access, granted by my being a student, to research some magical disciplines for him. Auristics was just the first one I chose, randomly." Mr Sol was a very peculiar individual. He also seemed very private, so Castor was reluctant to share too much information on him, though, really, what he'd told Tsaba was about as much as he knew about the man. So, basically, nothing.

Castor was brought out of contemplation by Tsaba's voice. He listened to her ideas, until she was done. "I think we can supplement that by specifying what we want them to tell us. So, for example, we could ask them to Auristically describe to us an object's temperature, perhaps; even though there will still be variation, it will be much more limited than if one describes the object's temperature, while another describes its colour, and yet another its structure."
Always open for a thread! Feel free to PM me!
Mailbox
User avatar
Castor Riley
Player
 
Posts: 224
Words: 127927
Joined roleplay: April 23rd, 2013, 11:59 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Tsaba on July 3rd, 2013, 1:03 pm

"True, but asking someone to determine a specific feature tells us more about the usefulness of one's Auristics than their actual perception," Tsaba countered. "I could tell you that your fingertips are cooler than your torso, but that tells you nothing about the variations in colour behind the waves that I use to determine that, and somebody who smells your temperature would give exactly the same answer." She was working simply from her knowledge of the human body, of course; there was no reason to pause and actually read his aura to know what his temperature was. It shouldn't have changed in the time since she'd read it last unless he was very sick. "Unless you mean focusing on parts of the aura that denote a specific charateristic -- 'How warm is this object? How can you tell?' -- in which case I agree with you. But it doesn't really address the main problem; I mean, if somebody else saw exactly the same thing as I did with Auristics, we could describe it very differently. I might describe your pulse in terms of wave fluctuation frequency; somebody else might see the same thing and mention colour variation. They'd both be accurate, but we'd just naturally focus on different things. Still, specifying individual characteristics to examine would cut out a lot of the problem." She bit her lip. "We could have a sort of question sheet; ask them to fill in the shape, colour, smell, et cetera, of the aura that they use to determine a specific characteristic. That's going to be limited by whatever we think is important, but combined with an actual description, it may yield more information."
Thanks to Abstract for the lovely boxcode!
Tsaba
Player
 
Posts: 367
Words: 200581
Joined roleplay: May 26th, 2013, 10:57 am
Race: Nuit
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 2
Featured Thread (1) Overlored (1)

Yet More Study [Castor]

Postby Castor Riley on July 5th, 2013, 1:35 pm

Castor was about to make the distinction in what he'd meant, but Tsaba reached the correct conclusion before he'd had to. It was really great to find a person who arrived at the same thoughts you did, even given limited information. "Exactly, I agree completely. I think this could really work, and give us plenty of viable information to boot." He smiled with satisfaction.

"Now then!" He said, clapping his hands together. "We have a few goals we need to achieve over the next few weeks: find Aurists through flyers and some discreet questions; find a professor to support our project, though this isn't absolutely necessary; and work out what exactly we'll have on this question sheet. Do you want us to each pick a goal and work towards it, or should we both work on all three together?"
Always open for a thread! Feel free to PM me!
Mailbox
User avatar
Castor Riley
Player
 
Posts: 224
Words: 127927
Joined roleplay: April 23rd, 2013, 11:59 pm
Location: Zeltiva
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets

PreviousNext

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests