2 things about the site

[thesilentbard]

I looked at your planar biography section and was quite amazed that H.P. Lovecraft isn't mentionned. Lot's of his work treats about things similar to planes, and I doubt that you never read any Lovecraft books



Where do I find the "spirits and shamans" rules? They don't seem to be in the download section.

 

[ax0n]

I have to admit, while I have read some H.P. Lovecraft I can't remember which stories/novels had planar themes - perhaps you could list a few titles that come to mind and I'll add them to the bibliography.

As for the Spirit Magic sub-netbook, that is still in production. I hope to have copies live in the next week or so. I'll post an announcement on this forum as soon as it goes live. If you want to look over some pre-release copies or even contribute to the release version you can join the mailing list, search the archive and get involved in the discussion.

 

[thesilentbard]

I've read only about 10 short stories by him, and I can't be too sure of what I'm saying. Maybe someone can correct me?

The Shadow out of Time

The Dreams in the Witch-House

Beyond the Wall of Sleep

The Haunter of the Dark

and there are surely many others.


They usually deal about gods and powerful entities beyond normal space and time. Sometimes characters travel to such places, but usually come back either dead or insane.
If you have the MotP, check out the decription for the Far Realm (p.211), it is definetly inspired by something similar. The tentacled monsters are a favorite of Lovecraft, even though they rarely actually appear, they are usually merely hinted at.

 

[ax0n]

Thanks for those stories. I've added Lovecraft to the bibliography along with you suggestions for tales. You can see that here:

http://www.enworld.org/fancc/nbopl/bibliography.asp

 

[thesilentbard]

Cool 8)

But I'd feel more comfortable if someone better informed than myself could check up the whole stuff

 

[glaucon]

I'm in the middle of doing some 'research' on the Lovecraft topic. Currently finishing up reading "The Best of H.P. Lovecraft", DelRey, 1982.
Cool and creepy stuff; he definitely has an evocative writing style, and a vivid imagination.
Lots of ideas here...

 

[Klintus Fang]

I'm speaking in terms of what my fellow mathematics oriented friends have told me regarding lovecraft here, but I trust there opinions so I'm pretty sure they are correct:

According to what I've been told, one problem with lovecraft is that he talks a fair amount about "non-euclidean" geometry when he discusses alternate planes, and unfortunatley, lovecraft has absolutely no idea what non-euclidean geometry is.

lovecraft apparently claims that it is the "non-euclidean nature" of some of his alternate planes that makes them so incomprehensible to mortals. the problem with that reasoning is that mortals think in non-euclidean terms all the time on a daily basis without even realizing it. in other words, there's nothing mystical about non-euclidean geometry.

the surface of the earth is non-euclidean. if you study general relativity you'll discover that the universe in which we all live in is non-euclidean.

I'm not saying don't use lovecraft, but do it with caution. he apparently uses mathematical terminolgy that he knows nothing about and thus ends up saying things that, to a mathematician, are ridiculous.

 

[Cheiromancer]

But when we look at a sphere, two great circles don't really look like straight, parallel lines; they are intersecting circles.

It's been a while since I read Immanuel Kant, but I think he said that Euclidean geometry was hard-wired into the way we perceive reality. It is a priori. We can define other objects to be "straight lines" that have non-euclidean properties, but they won't seem straight. They may express the true nature of the universe, but they won't conform with our perception of reality.

Which is Lovecraft's thesis; the true nature of the world is unimaginable; we are not wired to perceive it.

 

[Klintus Fang]

It's been a while since I read Immanuel Kant, but I think he said that Euclidean geometry was hard-wired into the way we perceive reality. It is a priori.

it's been a long time since I've read Kant too, but to put it bluntly: Kant was obviously wrong on that point.

We can define other objects to be "straight lines" that have non-euclidean properties, but they won't seem straight. They may express the true nature of the universe, but they won't conform with our perception of reality.

Which is Lovecraft's thesis; the true nature of the world is unimaginable; we are not wired to perceive it.

trouble with the whole non-euclidean argument is mutlifold though.

For example: If you measure the distance between two points on a city map by measuring the lengths of the streets you are going to drive along to get there you are using a non-euclidean metric. In euclidean geometry the distance between two points is "as the crow flys". If you measure it any other way, the metric is non-euclidean.

More to the point: if while you are driving down the road you visualize in your head the path to the place you are traveling to in terms of the intersections you are going to turn at then you are visualizing in non-euclidean terms.

This is just a simple example, but it clearly indicates to me that we're not hard-wired to think in euclidean terms. If we were, navigating city streets would be hopelessly confusing. flying airplanes or sailing ships on long voyages would be dangerous. these are all examples where you use a two dimenstional non-euclidean metric in order to navigate.

If Kant had said we were hardwired to think in 3-dimensions then I might be inclined to agree with him. visualizing in higher dimension is hard. But unfortunately, that's not what Kant said (edit: then again, it may well have been what he meant to say, after all, modern non-euclidean geometry was invented some 100 years after Kant died, so he couldn't have forseen us analysing his argument in these terms).

As an aside: Kant also said a number of things regarding the physical make up of the universe that are in direct contradiction to the general theory of relativity. specifically, Kant claimed time to be an absolute. einstien showed its not.

If Lovecraft had said the nature of the world was unimaginable for some other reason I might be inclined to agree with him, but to claim it has anything to do with non-euclidean geometry is, to me, silly.


[**grrr** are these message boards always this friggin flaky? it takes forever to get a submission through half the time. or is it just a bad weekend for the server?]

 

[ax0n]

I think what we are seeing here is the inevitable fate of all science fiction: obsolecence. In the same way that the robots and ray guns of Golden Age science fiction seem hopelessly naive, H.P. Lovecraft's attempts to describe the unimaginable in terms of the what we know have perhaps hit the limits of their believability.

What H.P. Lovecraft was perhaps alluding to was the theory 'hyperspace' so common in his time: the idea that there was indeed a fourth dimension like our own, inhabited by strange beings that lived outside the normal three dimensions and could see and affects us in the same way we might interract with pond skaters, who might only see the world as the 2D surface of their pond. H.G. Wells uses similar ideas in The Time Machine, as does Edwin Abott in Flatland. Although, Lovecraft's 'hypergeometry' hints at a stranger, more alien concept.

Of course, perhaps H.P. Lovecraft was vindicated in the end. Spacetime is not just non-euclidean, but, by common knowledge, beyong the comprehension of all but the most intelligent humans and the most complex machines. There are thought to be at least 10 dimension, the traditional four, plus all those other 'small' dimensions wrapped up inside atoms. Also, the many-worlds theory of M-Space is perhaps the final vindication of his ideas - outsiders from the 11th dimension!

Also, H.P. Lovecraft's dimensional theories are interesting in a historical sense, a window into a world when physics was still largely classical and could be understood by most people.