Speed of Thought

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The setting's metaphysics of magic are also relevant. Are spells mechanical in the sense that anyone that says the right works gets the intended effect? Or is it that the words are just a tool to help shape the caster's mind into just the right magical mindset for the effect to occur? In the former case, it might not matter how fast the execution is as long as you make no mistakes. In the latter, reaching the speeds of automatic reflex might be taking the conscious mana-shaping part of the mind out of the loop, and so counterproductive.

The setting's magic functions a lot like interacting with a computer. The fundamental use of magic requires inputting precise instructions of what you want to happen. People can't accomplish anything just by thinking the words, that would be like standing around awkwardly with a sheaf of papers containing a printed out program without any actual hardware to use it with but the words are the core of what makes a spell function rather than things to induce a spellcasting state. A spell could potentially be done arbitrarily slowly (though if it gets slow enough you would have to deal with not thinking of anything else in between steps) so speed in recitation is just a matter of how fast you can complete a spell.

[Calvin]

One doesn't necessarily preclude the other, such speedy recitation as the McDonald's aficionados mention matches well with the computer based imagery.

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V Fireball comes to mind. Or instead of copy and paste, the equivalent of inputs learned by muscle memory could be represented by a couple of "spells" (Or whatever the equivalents are) learned like the McDonald's examples. Maybe 1 per level of Magery (or it's equivalent), and an extra 1 or 2 for eidetic memory.

This could help balance combat spells, or other spells that require quick reactions. Your standard 1d magic attack may normally take 6 seconds to recite, but taken as one of the memorized spells it could go down to 2. You could have a multitude of different attack spells, but the mage is probably going to need to pick one as his primary damage dealer. You picked fireball and are now fighting a fire elemental? Sad day for you.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Calvin

One doesn't necessarily preclude the other, such speedy recitation as the McDonald's aficionados mention matches well with the computer based imagery.

What do "one" and "the other" refer to?

Originally Posted by Calvin

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V Fireball comes to mind. Or instead of copy and paste, the equivalent of inputs learned by muscle memory could be represented by a couple of "spells" (Or whatever the equivalents are) learned like the McDonald's examples. Maybe 1 per level of Magery (or it's equivalent), and an extra 1 or 2 for eidetic memory.

There mostly isn't an analogue of muscle memory to work with here. It is possible to just execute by name a prerecited spell but that doesn't remove the usefulness of getting a sense of how long it takes to do something the slow way.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Oddly enough, it's quite possible that you were able to recite it faster than you could think it; I would lay odds that thinking about what you were doing would slow you down. It's just a practiced routine at that point.

Mm, no. I just tried speaking it out loud ten times, and while I'm sure muscle memory played a part (between around 1992 and 1998, I had to have recited the damn thing well over 10,000 times), I averaged around four and a quarter seconds.

THINKING it, without any verbalization, another ten times, I consistently cranked it out around 3.75 seconds.

Two thoughts. First off, the advantage of verbalization is that I don't have to think of it, at all -- I just fire the sucker off. Thinking non-vocally, I had to take a second or two to compose myself before I started.

Secondly, referring back to the OP, my skill at that particular phrase isn't merely trained skill, it's absurdly so. Without years worth of repetition? Well, the first paragraph of this post is 45 words, and repeating it as fast as I could manage took me 9 seconds flat: over twice what I can routinely manage for that Raise Dead chant.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

I had that chant memorized early on ... and even sixteen years after the last time I used it, I can still recite from memory. Back then, I could routinely recite those forty words in under five seconds, and that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 wpm.

But that chant is not "information-carrying". You do not convey any new information with it. You can not convey information with it. It is a set formula, that you recite as by trained instinct.

Anyone using thought to communicate, e.g. some sort of Telepathy power, is conveying information, and that requires coherency on both end. The sender must be able to vary the message, the content, to convey actual information, and the reciever must be prepared to and able to notice variation.

It's like if someone says a stock phrase or question but changes one word. A not-clued-in-listened might very well mis-hear that as the stock phrase and not notice the change. He might even agree to something that he'd later regret profoundly, in front of witnesses.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

But that chant is not "information-carrying". You do not convey any new information with it. You can not convey information with it. It is a set formula, that you recite as by trained instinct.

Anyone using thought to communicate, e.g. some sort of Telepathy power, is conveying information, and that requires coherency on both end. The sender must be able to vary the message, the content, to convey actual information, and the reciever must be prepared to and able to notice variation.

It's like if someone says a stock phrase or question but changes one word. A not-clued-in-listened might very well mis-hear that as the stock phrase and not notice the change. He might even agree to something that he'd later regret profoundly, in front of witnesses.

The thread isn't about using thought to communicate. It's about how fast someone can mentally go through a memorized text.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

But that chant is not "information-carrying". You do not convey any new information with it. You can not convey information with it. It is a set formula, that you recite as by trained instinct ...

(points back up at the OP) Who cares? If we're talking rote memorization -- which is what magic spells are usually about anyway -- that doesn't matter.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

But that chant is not "information-carrying".

The chant does carry information. Consider the case where there is more than one possible chant. At the very least, the chant carries the information "I am this chant and not those other ones".

An analogy here would be typing a long command string into a computer CLI. The faster you type, the faster you "cast the spell". It very well may be exactly the same command every time you want the computer to do that particular thing, but you still need to tell the computer to do so, and the computer doesn't know what to do until it sees the chant. Use a command often enough, and it's quite likely you don't actually think about what it means, or consciously select among options; you just rattle off the syntax for the way you do that thing you want to do.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The chant does carry information. Consider the case where there is more than one possible chant. At the very least, the chant carries the information "I am this chant and not those other ones".

An analogy here would be typing a long command string into a computer CLI. The faster you type, the faster you "cast the spell". It very well may be exactly the same command every time you want the computer to do that particular thing, but you still need to tell the computer to do so, and the computer doesn't know what to do until it sees the chant. Use a command often enough, and it's quite likely you don't actually think about what it means, or consciously select among options; you just rattle off the syntax for the way you do that thing you want to do.

So make a short spell that rapidly chants the long spell for you. ^_^

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

So make a short spell that rapidly chants the long spell for you. ^_^

Yes, the equivalent of a computer macro. A .bat file for MS-DOS, or a slash alias for mIRC, and so forth.

I don't like total rote spells in fantasy worlds, anyway. It makes no logical sense to me. I think it's better to require the caster to vary the wording, or the rhythm or intonation, depending on local or current conditions, such as the directions of the astral wind, or the astrological situation.

That also justifies spellcasting being a learnable skill of some sort, something that takes a lot of time to learn to do well (as represented by points, whether the points are spent on a few broad skills with spells added on as binaries such as Perks, or if each spell is its own skill), whereas if all there is to casting a spell is just reciting 150-600 syllables rapidly, then how can that cost as much as 1 point to learn? That's 200 hours of study under a teacher!

If that is all there is to it, then for 1 single GURPS character point you ought to get (2*IQ)+5 spells committed permanently to memory. And the resulting world, the world that emerges from how a naturally behaving Humanity would interact with such a magic system, would be extremely weird.



And yes, I know choice-of-which-rote-spell to recite does carry information. But it carries very little information, relative to how long it takes to say it, let alone how long it takes to memorize it in the first place.