First Exodus theory revised

António Marques · 12 Feb 2011, 19:00 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ant=F3nio_Marques?=)
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2011 19:00:05 +0000
Subject: (urth) First Exodus theory revised
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On 12 February 2011 14:23, Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote:
>
> From: "Ant?nio Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>
>>
>> Gerry Quinn wrote (11-02-2011 14:08):
>
>>> All we know is that Tussah spent a lot on a special embryo. Everything
>>> else is inference. Leadership (and perhaps a propensity to hate
>>> corruption), with the intention to defeat the Ayuntiamento seem the most
>>> plausible objectives, if indeed Tussah was acting for the benefit of
>>> Viron (if he was acting for Pas, Viron has no future anyway). Tussah's
>>> knowledge of Typhon's personality is neither here nor there. Either he
>>> wants an embryo with certain qualities, or he is acting for Typhon.
>>
>> ? What then did you mean by '*then* great leadership skills are not much
>> of a pointer to Typhon, as they might be if they appeared in a random
>> embryo'? I thought you were saying Tussah reasoned a random embryo would
>> have leadership without corruption, whereas a Typhon-related one would only
>> have the former. If that's not it, I can't make sens of your paragraph.
>
> I am talking about the application of Bayesian-type arguments to adjust our
> prior assessment of the probability that Silk is genetically related to
> Typhon, based on our observation that he displays great leadership traits.
>
> Great leadership traits would be rare and surprising in a random embryo, but
> not in an embryo selected for engineered leadership traits, and not in an
> embryo genetically related to Typhon.
>
> So if we know that the embryo was engineered to have such traits, then the
> fact that Silk has such traits tells us nothing about his parentage.
>
> But if we know the embryo was not selected for that reason, then the
> appearance of these traits is surprising, and increases our belief in the
> possibility that Silk is related to Typhon. ?(For some of us it may increase
> it from 0.000000001 to 0.0000001, but nevertheless it increases it.)

Unlike Mucor's well-defined abilities, 'leadership' is a vague, if not
mystical, concept, and somewhat unwolfean on that account. But you say
'selected for leadership traits', which is imo the reasonable way to
put it, since it doesn't mention engineering per se nor reifies
'leadership'. One can argue that 'selected for leadership traits' has
a high probability of coinciding with 'genetically related to Typhon':
1) Typhon's scientists aren't magicians, there is no evidence and it
would be unwolfean to have them manipulate embryos at will, it's more
likely that they would work with material selected from people they
had access to, 2) would it not make sense for Typhon to want the
people with leadership traits, who would be detined to rule over
others, to be related to him?

I didn't say it was a strong argument; I just said that *if* it were
an argument, it would be in favout of Silk-relaed-to-Typhon, not
against.

>>>>> [Tussah] provides some of the backstory for the political situation in
>>>>> Viron,
>>>>> and he explains how a special embryo came to be implanted in an
>>>>> ordinary
>>>>> woman. He also provides Silk with a claim to the caldeship.
>>>>
>>>> ...all of which aren't really necessary. Enabling Quetzal aboard is
>>>> necessary.
>>>
>>> We are told how Quetzal got aboard (an experiment by the Neighbours).
>>
>> And what's the reliability of that?
>
> Pretty high IMO, unless the Neighbours' sense of humour extends to falsely
> admitting to activities some might construe as tantamount to genocide.

Iinm all we have are Silk/Horn's conjectures.

> Besides, there's no evidence for any alternate explanation of how he got on
> board.
>
>
>>>>> As for Typhon, if he wanted a child with Kypris he could have had him
>>>>> born on Urth, and it seems the most obvious thing for him to do!
>>>>
>>>> That would be a competitor. We're told he wanted an heir, it doesn't
>>>> follow that he wanted the heir around.
>>>
>>> Tartarus and Hierax were born on Urth. Clearly he wanted an heir there.
>>
>> It's not clear, if anything it's 'He didn't seem to mind having them
>> there'. But that was at an earlier time.
>
> You're stretching.

Not really - I don't see how we can compare Tartaros and Hierax to
whatever other heir Typhon may have had not by Echidna.

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