Ask Chaos Anything!

[Frustration]

21 hours ago, Chaos said:

Have fun, jeez). It happens a lot. I can't wait for when cosmere adaptations happen so we can have the same casting arguments about representation every hour for years on end! That'll be... super fun... 

We do not pay you enough for that.

Why did you choose the name Chaos?

[Bejarden]

When are you dropping the next episode of Shardcast? @Chaos

Edit: Ah never mind thanks for the episode

Edited March 14, 2021 by Bejardin1250

[Chaos]

1 hour ago, Bejardin1250 said:

When are you dropping the next episode of Shardcast? @Chaos

Edit: Ah never mind thanks for the episode

For up-to-date info, please check out the Shardcast channel in Discord, where I make small updates as to release timeframes there.

[Chaos]

There are some additional options than what you all have that have moderation functions.

[Ookla the Stranger]

Who are your top 3 favorite mistborn characters?

[Chaos]

On 2/25/2021 at 7:13 PM, Frustration said:

We do not pay you enough for that.

Why did you choose the name Chaos?

I don't think there was much logic in this. I just thought it sounded cool when I was 13 or so.

2 hours ago, Blake Hawklow said:

Who are your top 3 favorite mistborn characters?

Elend's my fav, but I don't really have rankings beyond that. I strongly dislike Zane though.

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood]

I cant remember my password, I thought I did but then I typed and it wasn't it.

[Honorless]

On 6/8/2021 at 11:29 PM, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

I cant remember my password, I thought I did but then I typed and it wasn't it.

You actually did it!  You should ask on the 17th Shard Discussion forum or the equivalent channel on Discord. Chaos doesn't check his AMA that often.

[Bejarden]

On 6/8/2021 at 1:59 PM, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

I cant remember my password, I thought I did but then I typed and it wasn't it.

You have to @ him or send him a pm if you want a quick answer

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood]

1 minute ago, Bejardin1250 said:

You have to @ him or send him a pm if you want a quick answer

already fixed it.

[Bejarden]

@Chaos what should the report button be used for?

Inappropriate content? Spoilers? Spam? Hurtful language?

Whats the policy on using it 

[Chaos]

On 6/20/2021 at 0:14 PM, Bejardin1250 said:

@Chaos what should the report button be used for?

Inappropriate content? Spoilers? Spam? Hurtful language?

Whats the policy on using it 

This will answer all your questions on the subject:

Anything that violates the Code of Conduct or the forum rules should be reported.

Edit: also, yeah, this thread is not a good place for urgent matters (as you can see by the long spaces between my responses sometime). Use the report button!  

Edited June 22, 2021 by Chaos

[Chinkoln]

What is your favorite animal?

[Chaos]

It is late, but I'm not tired enough to go to sleep, and I am energized by philosophy things in the Jasnah and math thread. Even if I do not understand religion, it's an interesting thing to think about.

So if anyone has questions for me, post here! I will try to get to these sooner than six months from now! (Oops.) I am in a bit of a philosophical mood, thinking about why I'm an atheist, and things like that. So if you're curious, ask away!

I should probably answer the last question here and get to some scragglers.

On 7/23/2021 at 8:49 AM, Chinkoln said:

What is your favorite animal?

Sharks are awesome. Ever since like 3rd or 4th grade I thought this. Back then I wanted to study sharks for a living. I couldn't say I have a favorite shark, but 3rd grader Eric would say whale sharks are super lame, so that one is my least favorite shark. Tiger sharks eat a lot of interesting things though!

Sharks get a bad reputation though. Shark attacks are extremely rare...

[Elf]

Who is the person in your profile photo? They look cool.

[AonEne]

Gotta admit I only understand half of what I was reading over on that thread, just that you were excited about it, so, questions! 

Are you saying that we create the language to talk about math, the principles of math itself, or the very existence of math? 

Have you always been an atheist, and if so, do you often think about your beliefs on the subject? If not, when in your life did you become one, or first start believing what you do? 

What's your favorite candy? (Mixing the questions up ) 

You've said before you believe in and like the idea of there being nothing after death. If that turned out not to be true, would you be unhappy, or would you go with it? Assuming the afterlife wasn't inherently totally miserable, like hell or something? Or would it be inherently miserable simply to continue going? 

How are Aona and Skai doing?? 

Do you like your job? Do you want to work toward being a professional mathematician like you mentioned in the thread? Or do you prefer working with people directly? 

What is your favorite type of math to do? Do you do math for fun? 

Is the thought of a higher power knowing everything - a benevolent one specifically - terrifying to you or comforting, or somewhere in between? 

Prisoner's dilemma, what do you do? 

If you had the chance to be a god, either monotheistic or polytheistic version, worshipped or not, would you do it? Would the answer depend on whether or not Jess was one too? 

Is it beautiful, to know that everything in the world happened on its own without someone higher power designing it all? 

What do you define a soul as? Do you think people have them? 

Do you think any religious songs are good music? 

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21?  

[Robin Sedai]

Who's your favourite author apart from Brandon?

About how many notifications do you get a day?

What's your favourite rank?

Full Feruchemist or Knight Radiant? If Knight Radiant, which order?

Do you know any other languages?

42 minutes ago, Elf said:

Who is the person in your profile photo? They look cool.

Who's the person in your profile picture? They look terrifying.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Robin Hatter

[Chinkoln]

Please offer your opinion on the timeless debate. Who would win in a fight, a Lerasium Mistborn or a fourth Ideal Radiant?

3 hours ago, AonEne said:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21?  

Putting my comments in a spoiler because I think you want Chaos to guess what it is

Spoiler

I love the Fibonacci Sequence so much, and graphing it out with boxes is super fun. It is such a wonderful thing, and it connects to so much in nature. Almost everything has a part of the golden ratio. The spirals of pine cones and sunflower seeds, the symmetry of human faces, the petals of a rose, even the body of a curled up cat! 

Also Chaos, what do you think of things that can’t be proven? The Twin Prime Conjecture, that there is an infinite number of twin primes (3 and 5, 11 and 13, 17 and 19).

Or the Collatz Conjecture, that if you pick any number, and if it's even, divide it by two and if it's odd, multiply it by three and add one. Eventually you will reach one and then be stuck in an infinite loop of 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1. It is possible there is a number out there that would create its own loop, but we might never find it.

[Chaos]

On 12/28/2021 at 0:43 AM, AonEne said:

1. Are you saying that we create the language to talk about math, the principles of math itself, or the very existence of math? 

2. Have you always been an atheist, and if so, do you often think about your beliefs on the subject? If not, when in your life did you become one, or first start believing what you do? 

3. What's your favorite candy? (Mixing the questions up ) 

4. You've said before you believe in and like the idea of there being nothing after death. If that turned out not to be true, would you be unhappy, or would you go with it? Assuming the afterlife wasn't inherently totally miserable, like hell or something? Or would it be inherently miserable simply to continue going? 

5. How are Aona and Skai doing?? 

6. Do you like your job? Do you want to work toward being a professional mathematician like you mentioned in the thread? Or do you prefer working with people directly? 

7. What is your favorite type of math to do? Do you do math for fun? 

8. Is the thought of a higher power knowing everything - a benevolent one specifically - terrifying to you or comforting, or somewhere in between? 

9. Prisoner's dilemma, what do you do? 

10. If you had the chance to be a god, either monotheistic or polytheistic version, worshipped or not, would you do it? Would the answer depend on whether or not Jess was one too? 

11. Is it beautiful, to know that everything in the world happened on its own without someone higher power designing it all? 

12. What do you define a soul as? Do you think people have them? 

13. Do you think any religious songs are good music? 

14. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21?  

1.  Hmmm... this is tricky. I probably need to think about this one. 

2. This one got really long. Disclaimer: these opinions are my own! If you find religion to be helpful for you, and they help you be a better person, that is great! I am a big believer in letting you do whatever you like as long as you aren't telling others how to live. But obviously, this question is about my perspective, and so I am happy to explain my perspective. 

I have not always been an atheist, but I've been an atheist for nearly a decade. I was "raised" a Lutheran, but I very much intend those quote marks. My dad wouldn't take us to church and we wouldn't read the Bible, and from what I learned, those are usually things Christians do. So I didn't have a lot of attachment to religion, and eventually stopped praying. I was probably agnostic by high school. Some friends and I went to a bible study once a week during school lunch time--there was free pizza and this started my love of Dr Pepper--and that was an interesting look into Christianity and seeing people actually analyze Bible verses. That said that pastor said some very scientifically questionable things, like that fish fossils were on mountains because of the flood. Yeah, that is definitely not what happened, geologically.

So anyway, I was pretty agnostic. I had never really had any spiritual experiences in life. I distinctly remember in high school, there was some health class, and they were talking about the four different kinds of health: physical health, mental health, emotional health, and spiritual health. And I just was thinking: is... spiritual health even a thing? Is that not just a sort of combination of mental health and emotional health? I never understood how that could be a different thing. (It is interesting reading things from believers to hear just how radically different people see things.)

I turned atheist after I had dated an LDS girl. Now, I do not mean to offend believers, and honestly, many LDS members I have known are very genuine in their faith and that brings them great happiness. That's awesome! Keep doing that. But I will explain why this turned me to be an atheist.

See, as an agnostic I was open to the idea that something could be out there, but that we would realistically never truly know for certain. This experience, of dating a person who was struggling with her religion, but was culturally so ridiculously pressured to do a certain thing, was pretty much a nightmare. We fought over religion constantly even though she really wasn't LDS. She absolutely wanted things that she would not be allowed to have in the church. Literally, we would fight almost every other day over religion. I have absolutely no issue with people having conviction, and having clear guidelines. But she didn't have that, and it was just so, so frustrating. Also fun: a few months after we broke up, she left the church. So glad we argued for many hours every week about religion!

This girl tried to convert me and... well. I don't know. This constant struggle really showed me how... strange all this was.

Okay, so let's do a digression! Let's talk about purity and virginity. I think purity is massively overrated. I have never understood how people think sex is a spiritual experience. Like yes, it is awesome and way better when you are with someone you love completely. I highly recommend! But spiritual? I.... don't know about that.

But, there are some massive problems with purity. First, and absolutely most importantly: it teaches sexual assault victims that they are "used," and that no one will ever love them because of it. Uh, screw that? I absolutely cannot believe that a kind and loving god would teach people that being pure is so important, when emphasizing that "Oh, you can only ever be with one person! Nothing will ever be the same as that first person!" has such a massive consequence to victims of sexual assault. I cannot help but see this emphasis on purity as that thing where old people don't want their daughters to get pregnant (and that is probably the most charitable interpretation, and I think you could reasonably argue this is some thousands-year-old misogynism). Second: teaching people to constantly think these normal, human desires are shameful except out of marriage seems very counterproductive. Like, let's say you don't get married until 25. You've had since adolescence that people have said that any sexual thoughts are bad, and lust is bad, and this is repeated over and over. IDo... do people who get in that happy marriage just... stop thinking these thoughts are shameful? I feel like that isn't how humans work. That must takes years to unteach your brain that hey, you're married! You can be lustful towards them and want them! Have fun! Thinking about this, I feel like the core "lust is always bad outside of marriage" is a highly problematic principle to teach people. Personally, I believe that sex is an important part of a relationship, and to be honest, more people should get laid. The world would be better if you do. Oh, and the idea that sex is "worse" when you've been with other people is... laughably false. 

So this alone (and I have other reasons as well, of course) makes me just not believe religions that have precepts like this are in the right. And when I had a girl I was dating--who constantly struggled with sexual attraction and that she shouldn't feel it--try to convert me in that these things are good ideas? No. I do not agree. Actually, I do not really think the idea of "sin" is even a useful, practical concept to get people to be good people, long term. I am not a fan. 

Of course, this is just one aspect as to why I'm not religious. But I think the simplest notion to explain is that, I don't find any religious text to be anything other than fanciful stories about mystical things. Like, if divinities were real, shouldn't the texts be a bit more than what just seem like old fantasy novels? We all read fantasy here. We know how authors can create very extensive mythologies. The Iliad is also essentially a fantasy story. I think most of these are created by humans and are not divine inspiration. These stories simply seem like very old myths, and myths that helped people make sense of the world. That's great! Love it. Nothing wrong with that. But if you're telling me an omniscient god basically made these texts, this should probably be a bit more fantastical than something someone could easily just... invent like a fantasy author who existed thousands of years ago. I don't know. There's nothing in there that is even at the level of, "wow, a super advanced alien wrote this, that's crazy!" to say nothing of something all-knowing and all-powerful. I am not impressed or convinced at all.

And I also think that if there was a creator, the evidence for such designs would be incredibly obvious in biology, chemistry, and physics. It should be obvious everywhere, under microscopes, in particle accelerators, and everything. If souls were real, we should be able to measure them. The fact that we cannot, and that if anything, there is an astonishing lack of intelligent design, and instead there is mountains of evidence of evolution in action.... I don't know. Maybe this is presumptuous of me to say, but if god was real, he really likes making people not know for sure that he is real. And if he is so hidden... why do I need him again? Which I understand that people would say, "faith is about not knowing for sure; it's about the leap of faith." Sure, but also... it's not very persuasive to me if the claim is that there is an all-powerful being out there. Big claims require big evidence. Big claim without incontrovertible evidence is not a compelling argument to any divinity's existence. I'd rather believe in things I know are true. If there's something out there (which I do not believe there is, but let's suppose), when I die, I'll just say, "I believed in what is observable and measurable. There's a lot of religions out there, and I don't want to be corrupted by falsehoods, so at least I know I have found truth here." 

It makes me want to write a fantasy novel about a planet of sapient creatures that are intelligently designed, and what that would actually be like. Because I think it would look so colossally different than here. 

Anyway, I feel like I am rambling. Hopefully this explains where I am coming from. Again, if religion makes you a better person and gives you comfort, that is fantastic. I'm just saying the traditional conversion tactics that I have heard are, to me, not compelling. (Of course, if you don't believe in the idea of sin, Christianity's pitch completely fails, so hey.)

My next responses will be very short because I have blabbed a lot already.

3. Dove chocolates, currently.

4. Fortunately I do not believe this is physically possible, but I probably would not like this, mostly because in any afterlife, I have to see some people I hate forever. That sounds awful. 

5. Well, currently I am away from home, and a friend is looking after them. They seem to be doing good, but I imagine they are lonely  I am missing them quite a lot.

6. No, to be a professional mathematician, you need a Ph.D. I cannot spend 4-6 years in grad school doing that. Also, math research sounds awful to me, so I have no desire doing that. I reasonably like my job, but if you get me at the end of the semester, then obviously I hate it, but that's every teacher!

7. I do not do math for fun. That's work. I did not like abstract algebra, but I liked real analysis, topology, and linear algebra.

8. Terrifying. Fortunately, I think that's impossible, so I'm not worried. 

9. Haven't really thought about this.

10. My first instinct was to immediately say yes. There's stuff to do, and problems to fix. I asked Jess, and she said I could be a god even if she can't, so that's good.

11. Oh yeah. I think it is way more impressive that there is not a creator! Like, that is just way cooler to see how complexity can arise purely through natural processes. We are not the center of the universe; we are small and puny. It's humbling and awesome. 

12. I do not think souls exist, nor will I until these are measurable. Until then, our minds are intrinsically linked with our physical bodies in a huge amount of ways that we don't even know the full extent of.

13. I find religious music to be very odd. Jess enjoys the religious Christmas songs for them just being Christmas carols, but uh... I'm not going to sing songs about how Christ was born. That's so uncomfortable to me. They can be pretty though. 

14. Fibonacci sequence of course.

On 12/28/2021 at 1:19 AM, Robin Hatter said:

Who's your favourite author apart from Brandon?

About how many notifications do you get a day?

What's your favourite rank?

Full Feruchemist or Knight Radiant? If Knight Radiant, which order?

Do you know any other languages?

Who's the person in your profile picture? They look terrifying.

Hmmm... this is tricky. Maybe Jim Butcher? I don't know. I do really enjoy those. I'd usually say my favorite non-Brandon book is Foundation's Edge.

Notifications: maybe 5, excluding reports. This can depend. Today was a light day.

Rank: Torturer of Heralds at 666 or Scadrian Waffle Cook is good.

Oh man, Full Feruchemist would be incredible. That's so practical for day-to-day life, and seems so applicable.

Languages: not fluently. Took some Spanish through high school, and took two semesters of Japanese, but nowhere close to fluent and I forgot most of it.

Profile pic: Shiro Tagachi from Guild Wars: Factions.

On 12/28/2021 at 4:32 AM, Chinkoln said:

Please offer your opinion on the timeless debate. Who would win in a fight, a Lerasium Mistborn or a fourth Ideal Radiant?

Putting my comments in a spoiler because I think you want Chaos to guess what it is

  Reveal hidden contents

I love the Fibonacci Sequence so much, and graphing it out with boxes is super fun. It is such a wonderful thing, and it connects to so much in nature. Almost everything has a part of the golden ratio. The spirals of pine cones and sunflower seeds, the symmetry of human faces, the petals of a rose, even the body of a curled up cat! 

Also Chaos, what do you think of things that can’t be proven? The Twin Prime Conjecture, that there is an infinite number of twin primes (3 and 5, 11 and 13, 17 and 19).

Or the Collatz Conjecture, that if you pick any number, and if it's even, divide it by two and if it's odd, multiply it by three and add one. Eventually you will reach one and then be stuck in an infinite loop of 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1. It is possible there is a number out there that would create its own loop, but we might never find it.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to delve into the Lerasium Mistborn vs. Radiant debate, but I do think Shardplate gives a massive defensive advantage beyond what Allomantic pewter grants. Allomancers are super squishy by comparison, and so the Mistborn would really need to keep their distance. This would likely be problematic against Lashings, which are very nice gap closers.

Well, it's certainly a bummer that it is impossible to specifically prove or disprove every conjecture (Godel's Incompleteness Theorem). But that doesn't mean that math is useless. For what you can prove, it's very important, powerful, and useful. I can't say number theory is an interest of mine, so I have no opinion on the conjectures you have named here. 

Okay, that's about it!

New rule here: please number your questions, and maybe limit it to three each. The longer list there is, the easier it is to procrastinate, because it's such a big list! (I can see why Brandon doesn't do AMAs much.)

[AonEne]

On 12/28/2021 at 1:43 AM, AonEne said:

You've said before you believe in and like the idea of there being nothing after death. If that turned out not to be true, would you be unhappy, or would you go with it? Assuming the afterlife wasn't inherently totally miserable, like hell or something? Or would it be inherently miserable simply to continue going? 

On 12/31/2021 at 1:12 AM, Chaos said:

Fortunately I do not believe this is physically possible, but I probably would not like this, mostly because in any afterlife, I have to see some people I hate forever. That sounds awful. 

1. What if you didn't have to see those people, though - they were off somewhere else and you never had to interact with them, or they'd gotten justice, or something that in the end meant you never had to see them again if you didn't want to. If the afterlife you were in was morally acceptable to you and you were with the people you cared about, not people you didn't, and it was according to your moral values, would you still hate it? 

2. So what about those lighthouses you mentioned to me in your book?  

[CryoZenith]

Since you mentioned you like Jim Butcher, I'm curious what your thoughts are on Ebenezar McCoy from Dresden Files? He does a lot of... Kelsier-ish decision making for the greater good, to put it nicely, although he's not lacking empathy in the way Kelsier is, he's just seen enough and been hardened enough to bite bullets when it comes to the greater good. Naturally the Dresden fanbase is a tad polarized when it comes to him, so I'm always curious to find out what people familiar with the series think of him!

[Chaos]

22 hours ago, AonEne said:

1. What if you didn't have to see those people, though - they were off somewhere else and you never had to interact with them, or they'd gotten justice, or something that in the end meant you never had to see them again if you didn't want to. If the afterlife you were in was morally acceptable to you and you were with the people you cared about, not people you didn't, and it was according to your moral values, would you still hate it? 

2. So what about those lighthouses you mentioned to me in your book?  

1. Hmmmm... I don't know. It still seems weird to just exist forever, you know? I've read/watched too many speculative fiction stories where immortality is just a bad idea. Why do people want to exist forever?

2. I'll PM you!

19 hours ago, CryoZenith said:

Since you mentioned you like Jim Butcher, I'm curious what your thoughts are on Ebenezar McCoy from Dresden Files? He does a lot of... Kelsier-ish decision making for the greater good, to put it nicely, although he's not lacking empathy in the way Kelsier is, he's just seen enough and been hardened enough to bite bullets when it comes to the greater good. Naturally the Dresden fanbase is a tad polarized when it comes to him, so I'm always curious to find out what people familiar with the series think of him!

McCoy is a fascinating character. I found he had some reasonable points in Peace Talks. I loved their conflict in that book. It was painful to read and I loved it. 

I am glad I am neither in the Dresden fandom nor moderating stuff like that. I imagine people have a lot of opinions there. I tend to turn off my analytical brain with Dresden and just enjoy the story.

[+Ed Venture]

Curious site specific questions incoming. (i am ready to completely accept that i get no answers)  

1. What are these groups. Gamma makes sense, you have a secret hiding place for the gamma readers, but special? Sounds fancy.

2. What would make someone unable to be followed? Is that a setting you can switch on that makes people not be able to follow you?

3. What was the last thing you wish you ate, but didn't.

[Robin Sedai]

10 minutes ago, Ed Venture said:

2. What would make someone unable to be followed? Is that a setting you can switch on that makes people not be able to follow you?

I can answer that one:

[Chaos]

On 1/19/2022 at 5:11 AM, Ed Venture said:

Curious site specific questions incoming. (i am ready to completely accept that i get no answers)  

1. What are these groups. Gamma makes sense, you have a secret hiding place for the gamma readers, but special? Sounds fancy.

2. What would make someone unable to be followed? Is that a setting you can switch on that makes people not be able to follow you?

3. What was the last thing you wish you ate, but didn't.

1. What groups?

2. Robin answered that. Thanks!

3. You know, I have some stomach issues where randomly, even things I regularly eat, my stomach just hates it on that day in particular. It's not great and my gastroenterologist was honestly kind of useless there. Man, what was the last thing that this happened with? It was in this last month. I think it was my usual breakfast of a bagel.

Totally unrelated, I miss when Soylents were actually good. They changed their formula so I had to switch to a different breakfast