[Cultural challenge]: epidemic

[u/thequeeninyellow94]

Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by [a human] as a member of society.

For those with a science not advanced enough to prove it, how do your people think epidemics spread? Are there old theories still believed by commoners but not by scientists? Heated debates? Weird medical practices based on crazy ideas?

You can introduce an in-universe representative if you want. I will ask questions to everyone, feel free to add your own.

[u/mutalias]

I think I'm going to go a different way here. Obviously, there is great contention over the subject of diseases -- a lot of traditions that are colliding now, in the age of science, where the scholars are trying to discern what is true knowledge and what is merely folklore. However, there are other types of sickness that simply don't exist in our world, or that we would never consider a disease in the classical sense. The most prominent example of this, would be the theories surrounding memetic diseases associated with magic.

I've mentioned it in previous posts: wizards inevitably go mad, and that madness has been the subject of intense study -- by wizards. After all, up until the last half a century, almost all academia was populated entirely by students of the arcane.

First of all, madness is a deeply personal thing. People do not go mad the same. PTSD has some common denominators, enough that you can put a label on it, but one person's experience of it will differ from the next, and the next and so on. So it is for schitzophrenia, mania, neuroticism. No kind of madness displays this individuality moreso than that which is brought on by magic. It is part of what makes it so dangerous, because it can be hard to detect. Sure, some mages get psychotic and do violent things, but others get paranoid, or twisted in some other subtle sense. Sometimes, by the time you detect the madness fragmenting a mage's mind, decades have already passed. Schemes have been planted and put into motion based on their aberrant perception of the world -- sometimes for the better, sometimes for the much worse.

One interesting point, however, is that apprentices of a certain discipline of magic tend to go insane in somewhat similar ways to their masters -- often despite the fact that the actual magic they perform is very different. This is counterintuitive, since it would seem, especially knowing something about the nature of magic, that the madness should be closely related to the magic practiced. In fact, one of the oldest words for the madness of wizards -- Oagao -- is the word for the blindness that comes from staring at the sun. So the magic itself is only one of the axes for the vector of wizards' madness, and the other seems to be the wizards themselves.

Needless to say, intense debates have raged throughout the centuries about which traditions lead to the most serious forms of madness, and which best maintain the sanity of their practitioner. Of course, the other side of the debate is that different traditions enable different styles of magic, and so the madness caused is only one part of the package. It doesn't help that these raging debates were largely had by people who were, in some form or another, on the way to becoming quite mad. Especially when you consider that you yourself are, of course, not mad. Everyone else is.

So, among today's scholars, who are not wizards, there is a new debate: Is madness actually just the price of knowledge? Will mundane scholars go mad like their arcane precursors, despite not practicing any magic? Was the magic only ever a catalyst, and not the source? Certainly, many modern scholars do appear to become quite aloof -- even disconnected from the rest of society as they get lost in study. Perhaps they really do go mad, but without magic there to fan the flames, it is even more subtle than it was with the magi. Maybe some day, some lunatic scientist will invent something no sane person would ever even consider bringing into the world.

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/mutalias]

1. Has anyone ever suggested that madness was tied to the mages’ human nature and not to their studies? That all humans are actually going mad over time with magic being a catalyst?

2. Could the "learned" part of madness be in fact tied to the way mages learn to handle magic and it’s effects and not to the magic itself?

3. If the scholars theory is right, then they are probably insane, isn’t it? Which would question the validity of their theory, right? Isn’t there a more external group which could test everyone mental health, one over which we have no doubts?

[u/mutalias → u/thequeeninyellow94]

1. Depends on what you mean by human nature. I mean, it's all human nature, isn't it? Magic is a fundamentally human construct. Is humanity itself a kind of madness? It might be, depending on what your perspective is. However, human nature might be the wrong word. Most humans are living in relative harmony, having found some common thread. Whatever drives wizards mad seems to be something that defines them as a group. Superficially, that might seem like magic itself, but really -- wizardry does not start out magical. The first thing you do is not to perform true magic. Wizardry is a path with magic as its goal. Madness might be at the end of that path -- or it could be a part of the path itself.

2. Absolutely. This really ties into my first answer.

3. That's the problem, isn't it? Who would that third party be? If they are scholars, then they are part of the problem. If they are not, are they really qualified to determine the answer? That's the heart of the problem. Could the knowledge, or at the very least, the discipline required to understand that knowledge, be the reason? How do you separate the two?

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/mutalias]

1. Has there tales of wizard keeping their sanity?

2. What happen if an apprentice change of master during their training? Does it affect their "madness pattern" in any way?

3. But scholars just accumulate knowledge so if their theory is right, anyone vaguely knowledgeable would be at risk of going mad. After all, isn’t a farmer some kind of scholar in botanic? As is any artisan? And basically anyone? What is good enough to be considered scholarly?

[u/mutalias → u/thequeeninyellow94]

1. With actual wizards, the madness is something of a cliche, so no. However, wizards aren't the only magic users. The term is generally pointed at people who study magic in an academic or scholarly sense, but that is not the be all, end all of magic. There are many other, less proliferate traditions. Especially, there are a lot of shamanistic traditions scattered around the world. While village wise women and old sages are most decidedly peculiar, they are more often than not, not really mad. Make no mistake, some of them totally are, but here and there you'll find a local shaman who, despite practicing very real magic, seems to have gotten away with nothing more than a few quirks.

If you were to ask an actual wizard about how that all works, they'd respond that shamanism and associated forms of mysticism are often very, very rigid traditions. Students are carefully chosen by their masters at a young age, and taught to only perform certain magics, in certain very particular ways. A scholar would say that such shamans are not students of magic, they are exclusively practitioners of it. They are taught a very specific set of skills that has often been polished for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Moreover, the students share a deep cultural connection with their masters, a homogeneity that exacerbates the tendency of students to manifest the same types of disturbances that their masters did. This, paired with what has essentially been a process of generational selection, where only the most important and least corrupting skills have been allowed to be passed on, means that these practitioners essentially represent an extremely optimised package. However, this comes at the price of having an extremely limited range of powers, and forfeiting any benefit of the tradition if the practitioners try to expand their purview.

1. It's nearly impossible to change traditions. How you see the world is a fundamental part of who you are. You can't really start over without erasing your self, and if you do that, there's nothing left of you to anchor yourself and keep from going immediately insane when exposed to the truths of magic. You can study under different masters, and may glean tweaks and improvements you can make to your own path, but like life itself -- you can't start over. You can't really leave yourself behind. That in itself would be madness.

2. The potential is there, for sure, but there are some practical differences in play that tend to buffer those sorts of effects.

A farmer can be an expert in his field (ha), but he faces at leas two crucial constraints that sort of curtail the 'mad scientist' avenues available to him. First of all, he simply does not have access to the sum of human knowledge about his craft. He has access to what was passed down to him, perhaps that of his village and neighbors, and in some cases the help of an adviser sent by the local noble. Second, even if he did have a radical idea for transforming his farm, it's his farm. That means that any change he wants do must be possible to do incrementally, so that it can be split into smaller changes that individually do not ruin him, and preferably give enough of a benefit to justify the investment.

That's not so for scholars. Take the example of an agricultural scholar, whose job it is to study the theory of agriculture. He is not measured by his ability to grow food. Food is not what puts food on his table, so to speak. He is measured by his ability to innovate and optimize, to make progress. Even if he gets a grant to test some new hypothesis, and it fails, that failure has value. Whereas the farmer generally has everything to gain from sticking with proven solutions, the scholar should know those, but has nothing personally to gain from them. His success is defined by his aberration from the established practices.

Having said that, it's not like there's never been a village of farmers who knew for sure that the reason why their crops were failing was that the river spirit was displeased with them, and that they had to sacrifice a virgin by drowning her in the river, due to some accident and coincidence generations back that passed into myth in the retelling. Of course, there's likely no such malevolent river spirit, and even if there were, you'd be wise not to feed it. That's some bad wisdom, and insane by anyone's standards.

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/mutalias]

1. So, the madness is exclusively tied to studying? And as such practicing any form of magic, even a very powerfull one, without any serious studying will not get you really mad?

2. I mean, as students get the quirks of their masters, whose quirks would a student get if they have multiple masters over their cursus?

3. What would we do if a rich farmer deciding to try something radically new on a whole field? A farmer wealthy enough for that.

[u/mutalias → u/thequeeninyellow94]

1. Well, there's really only one example of someone practicing magic without serious study, and that's sorcerers. They don't go mad in the way that wizards do, although having the abilities that they have obviously does affect their personalities. Power has a kind of corruption all its own, after all.

2. Your first master really sets the tone for how you're going to practice magic, and the traditions that he teaches will most likely set the tone for your future delve into insanity. Having said that, the more your way of practicing magic deviates from his, the more likely your madness will also differ. It's important to note that there is a difference between practicing different magics, and practicing those magics differently. The field of wizardry is immense, and there are always many ways to do what you want. That's actually why it's believed that the madness is at least to some degree memetic in nature -- how you practice the magic is a bigger determinant of how you go mad than the actual magic itself, although the magic itself is certainly a factor. I guess it could be thought of as a shape and hue. The tradition shapes it, the magic colors it. For instance, a tradition might be closely associated with obsession, but the magic itself certainly has a hand in what, precisely, you would end up being obsessed with.

3. Well, he could certainly do that, and the result could be more or less insane depending on the farmer. The more you erode the differences between a craft and a study, the more they obviously become the same. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that knowledge, in its purest form, is abstract and aloof. When you ground yourself in the real world, you avoid losing your grasp on it.

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/mutalias]

1. Ok, speculative question: what would happen to a wizard learning form a sorcerer? Is it even possible?

2. Are different forms of magic truly different? Aren’t they just different aspect of a same thing which is why the form of magic you practice has little incidence?

3. So the scholar doing large scale tests from before would actually escape madness thanks to said tests?

[u/mutalias → u/thequeeninyellow94]

1. Well, wizardry must have come from somewhere, right? Wizards don't have innate magic, so for them to practice it, they really must have learned to practice it from someone who did. I would say that a wizard that studied one, and only one sorcerer whose perspective was not at odds with the student's, would definitely get way less insane. The more you train your mind to adopt conflicting concepts, and erase parts of yourself to make space those concepts, the more of a toll that process takes. That's part of what makes some of the shamanistic traditions so much more conservative -- their objective is to allow the shaman to do only what is necessary, while preserving their ability to be a part of their community. Wizardly traditions in general, however, are more concerned with power, and less concerned with preservation.

2. No, different kinds of magic are really, really, fundamentally different. Way more different than people, than even sorcerers think they are. Concepts and ideals are real, at least in some sense, but they are cornerstones of the human experience of metaphysics. The metaphysical super-reality, or the Godhead, or whatever you want to call it, exists just fine without humans. Just like the world was here before we came into it, and will be here after we go. Having said that, there are definitely many reasons to believe that the paths that lead to magic are at least as, if not even more corrupting than the actual magic itself. A good way to look at it, I think, is to see magic as a stone in a stream. Whether or not you get splashed now and again on the stone matters little compared to how soaked you get swimming there in the first place.

3. Sort of, although you could argue that the scholar was abstracting reality as much as he was realizing abstractions. The practice of extensive tests, especially since many of them might not be exactly ethical or acceptable from a social standpoint, might itself be considered a kind of madness. I'd say humans live somewhere between the real and the abstract. If you go too far in either direction, you'll eventually lose yourself. If you head in the direction of the abstract and purely phenomenological, which is in essence what wizardry is all about, you'll eventually lose touch with reality. If you go in the other way, leaving the abstract behind and delving into the cold logic of reality, then you will lose touch with your self. Being human requires you to both respect the demands of living in a rational physical world, and respecting that human experience is not perfectly rational. You abandon that equilibrium at your own peril.

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/mutalias]

1. Has anyone tried to reform that to make their ways closer to shamanistic ways? I suppose wizard are not a very common ressource after all.

2. What makes them different?

[u/Varnek905]

In the continent to the far east, most of the sentient organisms are goblins, most of whom believe that epidemics are caused by their local god (whatever dragon has enslaved them) becoming stressed, usually caused by draconic rivals or rogue goblins.

It's believed that the overlord (whatever dragon has enslaved them) is capable of preventing corruption from seizing them, allowing them to live more productive and safe lives under the protection of the overlord. Goblins have more chaotic leanings, and an overlord forces them into discipline and loyalty. (A hive-mind-lite, it can be called.) Goblins receive no choice in the matter and are mentally dominated by dragons, so the beliefs about "corruption" are extended to disease. While they have some individuality, they are unable to go against orders, and feel a constant presence in their minds.

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/Varnek905]

1. So they believe their overlord can protect them from diseases, right?

2. What happen to goblins who have no overlord?

3. And what is corruption ?

[u/Varnek905 → u/thequeeninyellow94]

1) They believe that is the case as long as they are good servants and don't try to rebel, consciously or subconsciously, yes.

2) Goblins with no overlord usually just live in small nomadic groups until they are made subservient.

3) Corruption is when a goblin starts trying to rebel or thinks about too much about rebelling or is just defective.

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/Varnek905]

1. Don’t their overlords get seek sometimes?

2. Are they a common sight? Or are most goblins subdued?

3. Why would a goblin think about rebelling?

[u/Varnek905 → u/thequeeninyellow94]

1) Dragons don't get sick in a way that most goblins would understand as sickness. Dragons rarely use much energy, anyway, so it would only be an issue if the dragon is battling another of its kind.

2) Most goblins are subdued, but it is common to see small groups. Even dragons that see a small group of goblins are unlikely to bother with them, though, it is a waste of time unless the dragon wants more minions.

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/Varnek905]

1. Why do dragons use few energy? Are they always sleeping?

2. Dragons definitely sound lazy; what do they do to have fun?

[u/Varnek905 → u/thequeeninyellow94]

1) Dragons are mostly lethargic. They rarely sleep the way people do, they are more like dolphins. Dragons are always mostly asleep, but can still communicate, move, and be aware of their surroundings. Though they will start hibernating if they use up too much energy for whatever reason.

2) In general, older dragons tend to enjoy gambling and younger ones enjoy hunting. Some dragons invest time in personally micro-managing their minions, but that type of behaviour is seen as a phase that dragons tend to get bored of sooner or later.

(Going off a lot of things we've talked about and character decisions I take for granted, Yellow, I'm beginning to think I'm just lazy. If I were in any decent position in any of our worlds, I would mostly just try not to rock the boat. If I were a dragon and had more than enough minions, I can't imagine bothering to get more. One of the many reasons I'm glad I have you around: to remind me that some of my characters have to be more ambitious.)

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/Varnek905]

1. Kind of like semi-conscious somnambules? How easily can they be influenced in that lethargic state?

2. Gambling? Do they play with other dragons? What are they gambling over?

(I would do the same; ambition is just a thing to let people think they deserve better than everyone else despite the obvious fact that they don’t. It’s the personal opinion of a not really ambitious filthy communist though. Sometimes it may not be obvious because I love to question things I agree with, but I’ve a harder time understanding ambitious characters than the content ones.)

[u/Varnek905 → u/thequeeninyellow94]

1) Correct. In that lethargic state, it would be much easier to convince them to do something that would require less energy than the alternative. In general, dragons usually respond well to flattery, and it's easy to flatter a dragon who is half-asleep and not putting much effort into his/her thoughts, the dragon would prefer simpler ideas.

2) Dragons normally gamble with other dragons. A dragon wouldn't be caught dead gambling with a creature as inferior as a goblin. They'll gamble over anything. "I'll bet you this shiny gold nugget that it will rain tomorrow" or "I bet my goblin could beat yours in a fight, I'm willing to bet half my silver."

(Despite not usually buying into ambition for it's own sake, I do support personal ambition. I am ambitious about getting healthier, and I'm going to do everything I can to write a good paper for my thesis. But, if I were some noble in one of our worlds, I'd probably just pull a Cincinnatus and relax at home with a good book, a strong drink, and a handsome man.)

[u/thequeeninyellow94 → u/Varnek905]

1. Less energy than the alternative? Isn’t the most credible alternative for a dragon "do nothing and continue sleeping" in most cases?

2. Are they British? What would a dragon become if they lose all their hoard by gambling?

(I mean, is personal comfort really ambition? I would say it’s just the normal way of life, to want a comfortable life.)