[Basic] Skill of the week: Climbing

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Neither is Mathematics, as the most dramatic example. Physical science skills only are when you're using them to operate scientific equipment, not when you're using them for a knowledge base. First Aid scarcely qualifies and Physician is dubious.

Kromm has an implied limitation of DX vs DX/TL skill.

IQ/TL skills are the skills behind the technology where each TL is basically it's on paradigm of thought where Mathematics got relaxed by consent such a as zero, posizational notation, calculus, etc.

the Physical Sciences's TL also is not defined by the tool, but the paradigm's around the TL theories.

[Kromm]

Speaking as a (former) scientist, I took it as read that people would realize that theoretical models and mathematical methods are tools as surely as labs and telescopes are. They evolve over time because the real work of scientists is using and evolving those tools. Scientists understand nature via those tools, not directly. If the latter were possible, we wouldn't need science.

But it's true that abstract tools aren't always recognized as "technology" by people, so I could see that leading to questions about why, say, Mathematics/TL has a "/TL" on it.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Speaking as a (former) scientist, I took it as read that people would realize that theoretical models and mathematical methods are tools as surely as labs and telescopes are. They evolve over time because the real work of scientists is using and evolving those tools. Scientists understand nature via those tools, not directly. If the latter were possible, we wouldn't need science.

But it's true that abstract tools aren't always recognized as "technology" by people, so I could see that leading to questions about why, say, Mathematics/TL has a "/TL" on it.

Certainly you can characterize the theory, models, and methods as abstract tools, but I don't think that conceptualization makes the sciences "equipment-operation skill that becomes impossible without equipment". The 'equipment' in those cases is built in to the skill.

And I don't think that having models that serve as abstract tools is any kind of preserve of the /TL skills. Just looking at the very start of the list, Accounting, Administration, and Animal Handling surely all have their own abstract toolboxes that have changed over time.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Certainly you can characterize the theory, models, and methods as abstract tools, but I don't think that conceptualization makes the sciences "equipment-operation skill that becomes impossible without equipment". The 'equipment' in those cases is built in to the skill.

And I don't think that having models that serve as abstract tools is any kind of preserve of the /TL skills. Just looking at the very start of the list, Accounting, Administration, and Animal Handling surely all have their own abstract toolboxes that have changed over time.

Modern math damn sure becomes impossible without e.g. the mighty Zero.

[Kromm]

Try understanding the Standard Model of particle physics without field theories, field theories without tensor algebra and the Lagrangian formalism, and so on. I don't think people realize just how dependent the sciences are on the toolboxes and databases of ideas that came before. You can't "do science" that's meaningful to the current TL without those things. This convolution of the tools with what they work on is why sciences rate as Hard skills as well as technological ones. I'll grant that the tools don't qualify as "equipment" in this case, but you could replace "equipment" with "tools" in my earlier remarks without obscuring my meaning at all.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Modern math damn sure becomes impossible without e.g. the mighty Zero.

But if you have the skill Math/TL8, you have zero. If you don't have zero, you don't have that skill at all. (Or a personal TL anywhere close to TL8, really.)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

But if you have the skill Math/TL8, you have zero. If you don't have zero, you don't have that skill at all. (Or a personal TL anywhere close to TL8, really.)

What some of us are trying to say is that's why Mathematics/TL is a /TL skill. "Depends on tools" isn't the same as "depends on tools external to the skill." Some skills are bootstraps; Mathematics/TL is one of them. It depends on concepts that emerge at specific TLs to develop further concepts that meet the needs of specific TLs; to work within that framework, it necessarily has to depend on TL itself.

[Flyndaran]

Are there any IQ based skills that aren't TL in at least some degree?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Also remember the Climbing skill covers Absailing too.

Probably not. This is SJGames and American usage is almost always preferred. It covers rappelling.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Kromm

What some of us are trying to say is that's why Mathematics/TL is a /TL skill. "Depends on tools" isn't the same as "depends on tools external to the skill." Some skills are bootstraps; Mathematics/TL is one of them. It depends on concepts that emerge at specific TLs to develop further concepts that meet the needs of specific TLs; to work within that framework, it necessarily has to depend on TL itself.

Trying to make the "equipment-operation skill" classification simultaneously cover skills for operating actual equipment and skills that involve the mental manipulation of models seems to eliminate any discriminatory power it could have.