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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Wait a minute. Edge? Are we jumping into other fanfiction?
 
This is hilarious, so Clayface was impersonating Common Sense Paul and got grabbed by Korona instead. :D

No, he impersonated Peter Wynne of Earth-12 the Justice League cartoon world in this fic.

As shown here.

Common Sense Paul is on a Young Justice world, Earth-16c I guess one could call it.

As shown here.
 
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Is there a specific group of links to the common sense snippets or do I have to skim chapters? I just wanna go over those again.
 
I mean, it's the nature vs. nurture debate. I have serious doubts about this research, especially since other species are capable of recognizing emotional cues in humans, and there are clear emotional responses in other species. If it were totally an emergent phenomenon of highly-social society, then you would expect the qualia and presentation of emotions to vary from species to species or even from population to population within a single species -- indeed, you would even expect there to be a different set of emotions present. But at least in the broad strokes, they appear to be consistent across time and culture. Some cultures might have different conceptualizations of those emotions (particularly with regards to where the emotions are felt to originate in the body) and certainly the nonverbal communication cues have some variability because those can certainly be learned, but when it comes down to it the underlying palette of basic emotional responses does seem pretty universal among human societies.
Not really...

The basic idea is that bodies have various reactions, which are useful for survival, and that there's a "human model" of those as 'emotions', which vary across societies. So, odds are you've got some basic survival reactions/'logic', at the reptile level, some mammal reactions at the (pack of) dog level, and some primate reactions which include handling complex social groups. That's the classic 'monkey riding dog riding lizard' bit, which as long as you don't push it too far is still useful - humans add things like language and fine manipulation ability on top of that, of course. So, humans will share the (pack) mammal stuff with dogs, therefore each will recognise that in the other, and humans have bred animals to be more social.

Emotions, then, are a rationalisation of these reactions, putting 'logic' into them. You can expect some similar logic over most societies, as the biology is shared, but there will be highly important variations, like the whole fear/shame/guilt social logic thing. 'Disgust' is a good example, as it seems to be based on survival logic, 'angst', not so much... This is one reason that while you may doubt things like CBT, the fact that it focuses on working to change unwanted behaviour, not on emotional or historical analysis, may explain its high success rate.

If you think this is all too 'mechanistic', I'm not suggesting that we forget culture, as that's very important to being human, and making life worthwhile. Getting a good balance between the rational and the emotional, the individual and the group, survival and having a 'good' life.

All this makes DC's emotional spectrum highly suspect - and that's not even starting in on whether 'Will' is an emotion, or something like the basic survival instinct, which underlies all the other stuff.

But, as always... What do I know? I'm here for the interesting story. :)
 
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Hey does anyone know why Izaya, the New Earth version, was called 'The Inheritor' in the pre flashpoint comics?

I know the Prime Earth version of him received his powers from a dying Old God, so basically inherited them hence the title, but I don't think there was ever any mention of how pre flashpoint Izaya got his title of 'The Inheritor'.
 
I have a feeling that by the time Zade, Zaul, Saul, Raul and the army of Goldies come knocking "Peter Wynne" will have already released every other Paul and Jade, staged a prison riot and killed Krona. He'll do it without a power ring and without breaking his character even once.

Clayface the Saviour of the Multiverse!

That would be an Oscar winning role.
 
Hey Zoat if Paragon Paul were to go through the mirror to Equestria would he become an Alicorn, seeing as his soul is made of the heart of a godlike being?

If not an Alicorn then what would he be?
 
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I just imagine that at the start of any chapter or new POV characters has sudden inexpicable urge to check time and everyone just does that if they can, not questioning it at all.
Maybe they've all been on that training course, that teaches you to always mark anything you do with a date/time? Of course, the original teaching (Tony Buzan? Edward De Bono?) was that anything should have embedded in it context info, so a document should have a meaningful title, unique within the context, and a date (time if needed, maybe time-zone). If you go for the full Who/When/Why/What/Where (and maybe 'How') then some might think you're going overboard...


I do like that we're hearing from Clayface again. Their initial function seemed to be 'Save OL From Being Grabbed', but them doing more than that is fun! If they do a good enough job then they might be rewarded with a shape a little more... manageable than clay, who knows? If this was a DC comic then I suspect they'd just be dumped back in universe-of-origin, or killed, 'being heroic', if that more suited the plot. Let's see what Mr Zoat does!
Hey Zoat if Paul were to go through the mirror to Equestria would he become an Alicorn, seeing as his soul is made of the heart of a godlike being?

If not an Alicorn then what would he be?
You might want to make clearer who this 'Paul' is... We're dealing with a lot of universes, ATM...

EDIT:

If OL goes to Equestria through the mirror then (IMHO) he'll become a snake. Maybe a snake with unicorn-style magical TK, but a snake. I thought about a naga (human top-half snake below) but if humans go pony... Look what happened in the Silver City... I could be wrong... If Starswirl had a weird sense of humour...
 
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Not really...

The basic idea is that bodies have various reactions, which are useful for survival, and that there's a "human model" of those as 'emotions', which vary across societies. So, odds are you've got some basic survival reactions/'logic', at the reptile level, some mammal reactions at the (pack of) dog level, and some primate reactions which include handling complex social groups. That's the classic 'monkey riding dog riding lizard' bit, which as long as you don't push it too far is still useful - humans add things like language and fine manipulation ability on top of that, of course. So, humans will share the (pack) mammal stuff with dogs, therefore each will recognise that in the other, and humans have bred animals to be more social.

Emotions, then, are a rationalisation of these reactions, putting 'logic' into them. You can expect some similar logic over most societies, as the biology is shared, but there will be highly important variations, like the whole fear/shame/guilt social logic thing. 'Disgust' is a good example, as it seems to be based on survival logic, 'angst', not so much... This is one reason that while you may doubt things like CBT, the fact that it focuses on working to change unwanted behaviour, not on emotional or historical analysis, may explain its high success rate.

If you think this is all too 'mechanistic', I'm not suggesting that we forget culture, as that's very important to being human, and making life worthwhile. Getting a good balance between the rational and the emotional, the individual and the group, survival and having a 'good' life.

All this makes DC's emotional spectrum highly suspect - and that's not even starting in on whether 'Will' is an emotion, or something like the basic survival instinct, which underlies all the other stuff.

But, as always... What do I know? I'm here for the interesting story. :)

That's not how it works. Give me some time to dig up my psychology textbook and get back to you. Anyways, for now, my rusty knowledge should suffice. The model doesn't literally mean that parts of our brain are similar to that of reptiles and mammals, it was a metaphor. We didn't evolve linearly, but in parallel. It's meant to describe the complexity of the parts of the brain and the tasks they perform.

I'm not sure why you talk about expressing emotions as rationalisations or some such, given that 99% of what goes on in our conscious brain are so called 'rationalised' thoughts. As a rule we never make our decisions consciously, rather our reasoning is justification for the decision post-fact. As for the nature vs nurture bit, a good metaphor would be that the genotype allows for behaviours on a scale, whereas the phenotype only shows a fraction, determined the experiences of the individual.

Culture is a really complicated topic that I don't remember much of, so I'll get back to you on that.

The last part of your post though really makes me suspect your understanding of the subject. That's akin to saying 'let's all of us have a healthy balance between science and philosophy' and smacks of pseudoscience. Understand that the last part really raises my hackles, you seem to have a genuine interest in the subject but speaking like that is akin to talking to a doctor about your homegrown anti-vax theories.
 
He turned into a serpent when he was temporarily minus one body, so that seems to check out.

Nah, see, that's what I didn't understand. A) he's already shown to have snake imagery associated with him, and B) the two creatures are very different. The Ophidian leans into Biblical snake imagery as snake that convinced Eve to give into temptation, and I think they played it up for the life entity with the Christian leanings too. Which I mean is fine. Many of the readers and most of writers are from that demographic and they're only drawing ideas from that, so it's cool.

Bu the Quetzalcoatl is a very old god that went through a lot of changes. He's the god of wind and a lot of other things I don't remember, as well as being a symbol for Venus. Heck, he was even the freaking sun at one point in the Aztec creation myth.

Here are couple fun videos on the topic:




It's a snake with wings. Twilight got wings when she became an alicorn.

Or, on the other hand, the Rule of Cool is fine too.
 
I don't' know what they're gonna do
Extra apostrophe

I'd have though they would,
thoughts

The basic idea is that bodies have various reactions, which are useful for survival, and that there's a "human model" of those as 'emotions', which vary across societies. So, odds are you've got some basic survival reactions/'logic', at the reptile level, some mammal reactions at the (pack of) dog level, and some primate reactions which include handling complex social groups. That's the classic 'monkey riding dog riding lizard' bit, which as long as you don't push it too far is still useful - humans add things like language and fine manipulation ability on top of that, of course. So, humans will share the (pack) mammal stuff with dogs, therefore each will recognise that in the other, and humans have bred animals to be more social.

Emotions, then, are a rationalisation of these reactions, putting 'logic' into them. You can expect some similar logic over most societies, as the biology is shared, but there will be highly important variations, like the whole fear/shame/guilt social logic thing. 'Disgust' is a good example, as it seems to be based on survival logic, 'angst', not so much... This is one reason that while you may doubt things like CBT, the fact that it focuses on working to change unwanted behaviour, not on emotional or historical analysis, may explain its high success rate.
So at some level that just hits into a definitional issue. How much of what we call "emotion" is the fundamental physiological reaction, how much is the meaning we assign to that reaction, how much of it is survival, how much of it is cultural, how much of it is personal, et cetera? If you want to define emotion purely as the cultural meaning and if you want to claim that everything underlying that is just physiology... well, then, by that definition, of course you can draw that conclusion -- at that point it's nearly a tautology.

That's not how it works. Give me some time to dig up my psychology textbook and get back to you. Anyways, for now, my rusty knowledge should suffice. The model doesn't literally mean that parts of our brain are similar to that of reptiles and mammals, it was a metaphor. We didn't evolve linearly, but in parallel. It's meant to describe the complexity of the parts of the brain and the tasks they perform.
I didn't read it that literally, and indeed he did say "if you don't push it too far" which is an acknowledgement that it's a metaphor.

I'm not sure why you talk about expressing emotions as rationalisations or some such, given that 99% of what goes on in our conscious brain are so called 'rationalised' thoughts. As a rule we never make our decisions consciously, rather our reasoning is justification for the decision post-fact.
I think you just answered your own question. The argument appears to be that attributing a certain feeling to an emotional response (as opposed to identifying it as an evolved adaptation) is a post-facto label being slapped on by conscious thought.

The last part of your post though really makes me suspect your understanding of the subject. That's akin to saying 'let's all of us have a healthy balance between science and philosophy' and smacks of pseudoscience. Understand that the last part really raises my hackles, you seem to have a genuine interest in the subject but speaking like that is akin to talking to a doctor about your homegrown anti-vax theories.
I think you might also be reading too much into that last bit. I read it as "in the end, don't get too hung up on the philosophical debate, because the answer shouldn't change how you live your life."
 
I think you might also be reading too much into that last bit. I read it as "in the end, don't get too hung up on the philosophical debate, because the answer shouldn't change how you live your life."
Is the philosophy useful to you? If not, it's a waste of your time - Wittgenstein commented that most philosophy is playing games with words... (Though, I think he went a bit too far.) I'd suggest you don't write off philosophy, though, as science grew out of it, and is still 'natural philosophy' in some languages. Science is a tool, a modelling technique, a hammer if you like. Danger of just having (just) one tool is that everything may look like a nail to you... Elegance can be an interesting concept...

The more you learn, the larger you may realise your ignorance is. Balance is all over the place, look at the small range of temperatures (mostly unprotected) humans can survive in, the flow of energy from the Sun, the heat dumped into Space, the 'entropy gradient' needed for Life. Loads of more or less delicate balances all over the place...

How the world works, how this story works, different contexts, but you can learn a lot by looking at an idea in a different context, learn new and interesting ways it can be used. And, if I was really, really, evil I could start talking about meta contexts. :)

Please remember, it's up to you to decide if I've any idea what I'm talking about. :)
 
Peter has more common sense then that other Paul
Stating something still doesn't make it true.
so he get's the name.
No. Even if, against all odds, you provided a convincing argument that Peter is the one with more common sense, he still wouldn't get that lable because he already has another one (Peter Wynne, in case you've forgotten) and the other guy doesn't. If we decided that Common Sense Paul won't be called Common Sense Paul any more then when talking about him, we'd need to find something else to call him like that-guy-who-used-to-be-called-common-sense-paul-but-isn't-anymore-because-vaermina-insisted which is not going to happen. Meanwhile, Peter AKA Common Sense Paul would not be called Common Sense Paul because everyone would know that everyone else would think of a different individual and thus, all it would accomplish would be removing the lable of one Paul and making your points less intelligible.
 
Duplication (part 12)
17th May 2011
02:57 GMT


"Where do you want me?"

Commander Gordon looks up from her datasheet construct.

For reasons relating to public safety and time-space stability, we're rebuilding the tuning fork in the same place that Alexander Luthor built the last one. It also has the advantage of already being owned by the Justice League. Most of the tuning fork is held together by golden light, the pieces which were recovered from the original shoved into place in the golden mould. The effect is an odd patchwork of pieces and constructs, though the proportion which is construct is decreasing steadily as the local John Stewart reforms it under the instruction of Black Queen. He's… Quite a lot more capable than I thought he would be. I don't remember his exact abilities particularly well from the comics, but macro scale matter conversion isn't something I remember him being able to do. He's also dressed in a modified Guardian robe rather than the gold and black armour of the other Corps members.

"At the rate John's going, we should be ready to force the connection in a few minutes."

"Does that stop Krona, or open a portal directly to him?"

"It should just stop him. At least until he can build a new tuning fork." She looks around, smiling confidently. "But if he does attack us directly, then we'll be ready for him."

I don't know what the term for a large force of Lanterns is, but at the moment most of the light illuminating this area is shining from the rings and environmental shields of over a hundred Gold Lanterns. Also present are a large number of Justice League members in cold weather gear, as well as a veritable legion of bat-themed combat robots. Not all of the League members look happy to be here; esprit de corps only gets you so far in arctic weather, and those who don't have either heat powers or supernatural resilience are huddled up in thick thermal clothing.

I smile, and.. I think that my teeth show a little.

"What?"

"My previous world, and… The world all of the alternate versions of me came from originally, we don't have superheroes."

She frowns curiously. "You don't?"

"No. My original home has no magic or superpowers, and if there are any aliens then we haven't met them yet. And the world where I died and rose again… Plenty of magic, but the heroes it has tend to…" I look around at the eye-scouringly bright costumes all around me. "Dress conservatively, rather than wear costumes. Also, authorities seem to not actually be aware that magic is real."

In the air to the north, Doctor Fate summons protective ankhs at each of the cardinal points.

"How did they miss it?"

"Commander, this is the most mentally focused I've been since I died. When I go back, if I stay like this, I'll try and find out."

"Are you losing focus again?"

"Not that I've noticed. Hearts appear to be multiplicative for me: taking one-."

She gives me a level stare. "I know what 'multiplicative' means."

"Of course, sorry. I've never had this much power before. This could last a very long time."

"Though if we're fighting a Guardian, he might be able to undo it."

"Poss-ibly. I don't know if they ever used black rings, but… It's their technology."

She reaches into a utility pouch and pulls out a gold power.. ring.

"The reason why I've brought so many Gold Lanterns here is that our rings weren't made by the Guardians. They were made by John Stewart, with input from Sinestro and Lex Luthor. All of the programming was rewritten and replaced, so while we can't stop Krona affecting it, he shouldn't have any advantage over anyone else."

"Good show. So I should stay here?"

"No." She passes the ring to me. "So you should take this. It can't help with your other emotions, but you should at least be able to remember why you're fighting."

I.. take the ring and slide it onto my right middle finger.

"Does it come with a personal lantern?"

She nods. "Of course."

I.. nod. "I'm not sure this will actually work since it's not a heart, but… Thank-"

She suddenly looks up toward the top of the tuning fork.

"- you."

"John's ready for you. Follow me."

She rises in his direction, and I float along after her.

"So how is this going to work?"

"The original tuning fork used people from as many different pre-merger realities as they could find in order to… Pry this universe apart along the seams. We think that Krona is using different versions of you to study the layout of the multiverse. That should be less dangerous -at least to start with- and so we're using you to link our tuning fork with his. It should be a simple matter of imbuing each of the seven power containment units with small amounts of your-"

A small frown.

"-emotional energy, while Black Queen does the same on the other tine. Once Krona has been shut down we can worry about how we stop him permanently."

We stop just above the platform at the top of the right tine, and I land in the centre of it. Black Queen is already on the other side, while Red and Indigo rise up to keep me-.

A Gold Lantern flies up with a fur-wreathed and decidedly disgruntled Cheshire. The local one, presumably.

I give her a jaunty wave as she's flown over to Black Queen.

"Right then." I look around for a moment and try and work out how I'm going to do this. Infusing other things with emotion isn't really something I've done before. Black rings are more about taking emotion from other people. On the other hand, infusing other things is basically what I do when I make a new ring, right? "Let's get this show on the road."

I arbitrarily designate one of the power containment units 'will', and mentally assign a sigil to each of them.

Anger should be easy. I didn't need to heart-rip demons to get that. Rage at a power I/he couldn't fight against killing the only person he loved and making him feel weak and helpless-.

It's like… Vomiting. One moment I'm standing there pointing my right hand off to one side, the next a thin tube of black connects the ring to the containment unit, red light flowing along the inside. And it does not feel nice to vomit from your soul rather than your stomach.

"Power level twenty five percent."

One percent a time?

The construct evaporates, a dull red sigil floating over the containment unit.

That's not too bad.

I glance over at Black Queen. She's gone for will first, which probably comes most naturally to her. She looks my way as her sigil forms and I give her a thumbs up.

Next is avarice. Well, I do like feeling alive, and those demons liked being in the material universe. This one should be easy-.

A man in a green, black and white costume appears in the air between the tines and looks around wide-eyed.

"Oh, not ag-"

The sky turns red.

"-ain."
 
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