Images are in the eye of the observer

[hcobb]

Images and Illusions ought to be blind to all things not observed by non-mindless observers.

Hence an Image scout can't spot a slime that's out of the line of sight of all minded observers.

[phiwum]

That's a little bit vague. Suppose there's a sleeping person in a room. Would an image see the sleeping person? Would it see a conscious person who is not seeing it (back turned to the image, say)? When the person turns around and sees the image, does the image suddenly see the person?

I think that we've discussed whether images or illusions ought to be able to act as scouts here before. Obviously, this suggestion is a way to nerf scouting abilities. It's a significant nerf, however, and ought to be carefully considered, I think.

It leads to additional issues. Suppose a wizard has previously seen a passage, but the passage is not currently being observed by any mind. Can the wizard navigate the image through the passage into the room on the other sides, where there are mind-possessing beings, thereby seeing the room? Doing so would be much trickier than walking in a darkened space, because the image wouldn't have any feedback in the unobserved passage.

[hcobb]

Note that images and illusions vanish the instant that the caster loses consciousness, so the sleeping don't provide the needed level of awareness. Perhaps these can't even exist any place where there is no observer.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Note that images and illusions vanish the instant that the caster loses consciousness, so the sleeping don't provide the needed level of awareness. Perhaps these can't even exist any place where there is no observer.

You are conflating two quite different things: the consciousness of the caster and whether any conscious being is observing the image. Far as I know, *every* creation vanishes when the caster loses consciousness, so if this reasoning worked, we would have to conclude that summoned beings, fire, etc., must be observed to exist.

Which is, of course, fine if we're interpreting Cidri in terms of Berekleyian Idealism -- sort of. But I've already pointlessly introduced philosophy recently enough that I'll let it go.

[Shostak]

There's got to be fodder for a paper on epistemology lurking somewhere in the Images & Illusions section of ITL.

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by phiwum

Far as I know, *every* creation vanishes when the caster loses consciousness

Nope, c.f. ITL 137 vs ITL 139

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Nope, c.f. ITL 137 vs ITL 139

Fair enough. Illusions and images vanish instantly when the wizard goes unconscious while summoned beings last until the end of the turn.

Nonetheless, the fact that an image requires that the caster is conscious does not suggest that the image's sensory organs only work when some other conscious being is sensing him. I just don't see anything at all that connects the former to the latter.

Obviously, that doesn't mean a houserule to require being sensed in order to sense is a terrible idea. I just don't see any reason that the immediate blipping out of existence when the caster goes under somehow supports such a houserule.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Images and Illusions ought to be blind to all things not observed by non-mindless observers.

Hence an Image scout can't spot a slime that's out of the line of sight of all minded observers.

There’s the problem, too, of an Image or Illusion only sensing conscious beings and not their inanimate or vegetative surroundings.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Shostak

There’s the problem, too, of an Image or Illusion only sensing conscious beings and not their inanimate or vegetative surroundings.

If I understand Henry's idea correctly, it goes something like this:

An image, let's say, requires the perception of a conscious being in order to perceive anything. It's as if the image has a rudimentary sort of telepathy, but even that's not quite accurate.

Let's take eyesight, for example. We have an image J near a single conscious being X. Let's say the two are around a corner from each other. Then J can see anything which is in both his visual field and also the visual field of X, but nothing else. If you imagine two sight cones emanating out, one from J and the other from X, then J can see things in the intersection of the two cones, but nothing outside that intersection.

(Honestly, it would work in an odder way than that, I'd think, since X may be seeing a face of an object while J cannot see that face at all because it's blocked by a different face. But it would be reasonable to say that J can see any *objects* that are in both his and X's fields of view, rather than any particular feature in the overlap.)

It's a little too weird for my tastes, I'm afraid. It's much stranger than saying that J can't see anything that his caster can't see, which I've heard suggested before.

In practice, I wonder whether there are enough little rodents and such about that images would still generally see anything in their vicinity. Even a spider has IQ 2, so would suffice to allow a nearby image to see everything that the spider could see. I guess that most of the time, this restriction wouldn't be much of a restriction at all (unless, I suppose, that spiders and other insects can't see very far).