Fundamental Concepts and Terminology

Tatha's universe and mechanics are based on a philosophical worldview unique to it and not an exact representation of any existing worldview.  Philosophically it has been influenced primarily by Buddhist philosophy, Hugh Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, H. Dieter Zeh's Many Minds Interpretation, Max Tegmark's Levels III and IV Multiverses, David Lewis' Model realism, Information theory, Morphic Field theory, Carl Jung's Archetypes, Semiotics, good old fashioned Solipsism, and a lot of new-age mumbo jumbo.  It draws also heavily from existing science fiction books, movies, games, anime, and rpgs too numerous to count (though I would count Noein, Shadowrun, Mage, Digital Devil Saga, Lawnmower Man, I'm A Cyborg But That's Ok, Run Lola Run, Doctor Who, Time of Eve, Star Control, The Black Cloud, Ghost in the Shell as well as many of the works of H.P.Lovecraft and Isaac Asimov as primary references).

Informational Disclaimer: Previous understanding of these concepts and terms may be benificial or may be harmful in understanding Tatha - occassionally terms are used (scientific, religious or fictional) for a new purpose, quite often a parable or abstraction of their original meaning.  Therefore it is wise to not equate any prior specific knowledge with concepts found in the game and instead use the general background understanding as a basis to build new specific knowledge.  Likewise, any specific knowledge gained of these terms or concepts may be harmful if brought into the process of learning the source of their influence.

To be best experienced, Tatha requires a pretend belief (at least partial) in its philosophical worldview.  Not all of these concepts need to be fully understood nor will they all be encountered, however a background is useful for understanding the nature of the game mechanics.  I will try to sum up the fundamental concepts in this chapter, however far more are spread throughout the chapters on Core Mechanics, Setting, and Modern Science.

Observational Reality

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."- Buddha

To sum up this entire section one could spout some simple abstraction like "the more people believe something, the more true it is" and then clap a couple times to keep the fairies alive.  However, to understand how this fits in with time travel and concepts like 'magic' quite a bit more depth is required.

Abstraction

An abstraction is a model of a particular phenomena or set of phenomena that makes further inferences possible.  Also called Upaya, the abstractions are known to not represent truths themselves but make further truths easier to glean.  Examples of abstractions are scientific models (the atomic model, for example), logical models (ontologies), as well as religious models (God in heaven).  

Many abstractions are presented in this chapter and are continually referenced within the game world.  It is important not to get tricked by these abstractions into believing that they, by themselves, represent empirical truth.  

Quanta and Dharma

Quanta (singular quantum) are any measurable property of an object, physical or abstract.  Every quanta is intertwined with a phenomena/event (or dharma), the event of the measurement itself.  Both terms refer to the same concept, the former is a more measurement-oriented term while the latter is a more cognizance and time oriented term.

Observable

Observability is a primary concept within Tatha for which it is practically impossible to play without understanding.  To observe an object or quanta is to project a sensing, cognition or measurement into the mind of the witness.  This in turn creates the object within their 'reality'.  This is in opposition to theories of objective, physical and transcendental forms of realism.

Casual physical reality is defined by sparśa (contact between senses and sense objects or quanta).  This can be seen as a implicit contract between the object being observed and the observer that affirms both.  It can be helpful to think of this sense-contact as an invisible thread or wave tying the drum to the ear, however it is important not to get caught up in the wave as an object itself.  To truly understand sparśa, one must realize that the drum exists WITHIN the ear itself.  The soundwave is a useful abstraction for determining the phasetime relationship of the sense as it travels through the witwork, but the soundwave itself does not cause sound.




Other common terms for this are noesis (verb: noein, sense object: noeton), and it is composed of pratyakşa (direct perception) and anumāna (logical inference).

Causality

Furthermore, causality itself is an abstraction.  The hand hitting the drum does not cause the sound, nor does the soundwave hitting the ear cause the sound to be heard.  To flip it on its end:  hearing the sound of a drum does not cause a soundwave to be observed which has a definable origin necessitating a drum and a hand to hit it.  In reality, it is both: the drum being hit and the ear hearing the sound are mutually dependent events.  

Observational Constraint

In order to affect a thing, one must be able to observe it.  Example: in order to break apart the atoms in a brick wall using nanomagic, one must be able to confirm that it is made of atoms (through the nanoeye or otherwise) as these atoms cannot be targeted without directly observing their existance.  It is not enough to believe in deductive evidence or transcendental assumptions (I have seen atoms contained within one brick or solid once, therefore this wall must also contain them).  What isn't so important is whether it HAS atoms or not as once they are observed, they exist - the trick is easily observing them.

The set of direct observations upon which one makes measurements and modifications is called the experiential basis.

Observe

Within the context of this game, whenever the word 'observe' is used it means to perceive, create and transmit (via Pharon) and not just one of these things.

Subserve

When the conscious mind observes a phenomena it is a fully realized phenomena or a focused observation.  However, when the senses, subconscious mind, or pharons alone perceive a phenomena it is called a partially realized phenomena, a peripheral observation, or a subconscious observation (or subservation).  For all intensive game purposes, both types of observation count as an 'observation', however certain rules may call out the need for a focused observation.

Imageable

"Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there." - Richard Feynman

Imageable means it can be seen in the mind's eye (was previously observed or can be composited out of things previously observed).  This is a stronger term than imaginable, as imaginable does not require that you can form a clear sense-signature.  Artists will probably have an easier time grasping this concept as drawing requires that you see the subject clearly in your mind before putting pencil to paper.  Likewise, one cannot conjure up a fireball without having a clear-as-reality mental image of what this entails.  

Imageability Constraint

If an ability or mechanic requires something to be imageable, it means that it is either currently observeable, a memory, or something that is a composite of observations and memories.  If a teleport power requires that the destination is imageable, this generally requires that you have been there before or have access to the memories of one who has.  All modern Tatha travellers have a complete and photographic memory, working with partial memory evokes special rules.  

Witness

A witness is a term for one who observes, and as such a reality creator, and the beholder of a unique reality.  For an entity to be a witness it must be alive, though the definition of life has been expanded greatly over the last few millennia.  However, the contrapositive is not true: not all living things are witnesses.  

The common parlance for a witness is a 'wit'.  
Following this, many mainline earth english phrases like "Keep your wits about you." (meaning keep your friends/others close) and a "Battle of wits" (battle between witnesses to modify coreality) have been recycled into general use.

"The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." - Bertrand Russell 




Local Reality

One's local reality is the sum of the personally observable events and quanta.  This includes all reified objects created/observed by the observer.

The Sensesphere (Ayatana)

To understand the senses one must understand the Sensesphere (or Ayatana).  The Ayatana is all of the sense objects found within one’s Local Reality (the unique world observed by the character).  It is all things ‘observable’ within a local sense.  The default size of this sphere for gameplay purposes is 100m, including about a 1-2 second temporal span, meaning anything outside of this is not fully observed within the local space (making out a shape on the horizon is only partially observing it - it could be something very different when it gets close).  This sphere becomes the default distance for all abilities that aren’t denoted as “Far”.

Extrasensory

Through nanotech, genetics, esper enhancements and training, human kind and other species able to travel across worlds have developed extra sensory powers.  It turns out present day humans already have a little bit of this: the ’sixth’ sense.  Over time it was found to contain far more nuances and techniques - another 6 whole sense disciplines hidden within the ’sixth’ sense.  These abilities collectively are called the sixsense.

Coreality

Coreality is the overlay of two or more local realities into a shared reality.  

Temporal Reality

Temporal reality is the sum of all observations that share a given nomitemporal measurement (so, a massive coreality).  They are also refered to as time slices (this term is common in conjunction with the Tree Model below).  The time slice that is current is called now reality, the nowslice, or just now.  A slice containing only a local reality at a given time is called a local slice.

Indra's Net

Indra's Net is an abstraction for understanding the concept of dependent origination (non-causality).  It is also used to describe any the interdependent set of events or outcomes.  Lastly it is also the name of various observational and cognition systems found in the mainline (indranet).

"Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image." - Alan Watts

The Tree of Time


A helpful abstraction when dealing with time while holding on to the abstraction of time as a unidirectional force and causality as still having utility is that of a growing tree.  Every time a quanta is observed, a new branch is created where that quanta exists.  An example: If you roll a 6-sided dice, 6 new branches are 'created': one for each potential outcome.  By observing the outcome as a 5 for example, you are choosing to move down the '5' branch of the tree and ignore the others.  However, there are 5 more 'you's that chose to observe the other 5 values and go down those paths.  

Altering the Tree

Within this abstraction it is easy to see that the paradoxes of a re-entrant timeline (a timeline that can modify itself) are impossible.  Suppose you wish to change an event in the time called now by going back to a time called before and changing an event (such as killing your own parents to prevent your birth) to alter the course of now.  First, the act of entering before causes a new branch to exist which we might call alt(before) (for alternate before) as the previous before doesn't include you jumping into it.  So this doesn't alter before or now, it only creates a new branch, therefore now is unchanged.  However, jumping back to now to check on your new future can only create alt(now), as the previous now didn't involve you jumping back into it.  The version of now in which you do not exist due to having never been sired is at best theoretical, having never been observed.  The act of attempting to jump to it creates alt(after(alt(before))).  Of course, this is an arbitary future to alt(before) at best as there are infinite theoretical branches extending from alt(before) by a nomitemporal length denoted by the time length now - before. 

This abstraction fits the first law of temporodynamics:  Temporal reality can only be cohered or decohered, never modified.

Continuance

The stacked set of all local slices that constitutes consciousness via apperception. See also to some degree Leibniz's monad concept.  

This term is also used as a measurement of predictability / consistency within a given set of local slices.  Highly connected and predictable realities are said to have a high degree of continuance, wheras realities that are highly disconnected from one moment to the next or highly unpredictable are said to have low degree of continuance.  Continuance has many important uses with respect to collecting memories, diagnosing temporal dissoassociation insanity, and building observational computers.  Continuance is also often called personal temporal coherence.

Transience

Transience is a measure of change or flux created by the sum of a set of observations upon a measurement.  See also Mono no Aware.

Quantience

Quantience is the measure of quanta junctures within a given temporal field.  

Quitessence

Quintessence is a measure of 'witnessing power' of a given witness, or of a sum of witnesses contained within a given area of spacetime.  The quintessence of a given timeslice directly corrolates to the maximum quantience within that slice.

Bar Epsilon

Bar Epsilon (\bar{\varepsilon}) is the notation for the constant for largest possible difference in two local observations to count it as a shared observation and therefore strengthen the existance of the noeton. When the difference in observation is less than BarEps, then the quanta is said to be coequivocal.

Endoxal Volume

The Endoxal Volume or EV of a quanta set is the degree of coequivocal observations by one or more witnesses.  The equation takes one or more quanta and one or more witnesses and produces a single complex number.

Tantriphase

Tantriphase is the resonant EV of two or more witnesses' entire local realities.  When two local realities are 'in tantriphase', this means that there is a high degree of quanta within their coreality and that fluxuations will be highly compatible.  This is a particularly complex topic but in-phase and out-of-phase do not directly corrolate to shortest-distance 'similarity' between realities - it is possible for two completely different realities to be in-phase or two very similar ones to be out-of-phase.

Pharon


Pharons are the entangled actualization of the mind.  Pharons connect the astral mind to the neurons of the nervous system as well as to other pharons, objects and symbols.  They are a visualization of the true form of the mind.

As your eyes flit about the room, pharons tendril out like electricity, touching everything you see, entangling and perceiving, like when hands touch a plasma globe.

When the mind thinks of an abstract subject or symbol, the pharons extend to the nearby noosphere and entangle the symbol.  They can cross spacetime and touch memories of 
objects.  Memories and thoughts are but addresses and patterns for pharons to entangle.  

Pharons obey their own special laws that look at first like the laws of electromagnetism or thermokinetics.  When a pharon touchs an object, charge is drawn, leaving the object with a positive charge, making it more attractive to other pharons and minds.  Except then it behaves more like heat, the more contacts it receives, the higher its energy state and the more visible/findable it is to other minds.  

In simple terms, when someone observes or thinks of something, it makes it easier and more likely that others will think of this thing.  This effect is multiplied due to interconnections across the witwork.

The Witwork

The Witwork is the continuum network of interconnecting pharons between witnesses.  Each connection has a measurable distance (in tantraphase degrees), and warmth (in pharothermons: the warmth designates the recency and strength of quanta being passed across a connection).  


People with a close physical relationship (observable spacetime) will have their connections strengthened, as will people who have developed strong bonds.  Connections can be formalized and 'held open' using Link abilities (see Abilities).  One of the sixsenses allows a more direct perception of the witwork and of pharons (Witch).


A good casual example of the effect of the witwork is the effect of music especially at a concert.  The desire to sing along, air guitar, or mouth the words is the witwork calling.


Coherence

Coherence is the measure of order within a given thing, its resistance to entropy and therefore its effective 'existence strength'.  It can refer to a coherence at a specific point, but most often it refers to the coherence of a unique quanta across ALL temporal realities and dimensions.  

Personal coherence

Personal coherence is the amount to which the concept of the unique you is grounded within reality.  Take the example of the death of a recluse (not going to make it a cat - I love cats).  If a person dies, leaving no trace and being remembered by no other being - they cease to exist at all.  However, there are still an infinite number of branches in which they do... or are there (as we will see below)?  Suffice to say for now, any character who has zero personal coherence is irreconcilably non-existent (rendered unto entropy).

Local coherence

Local coherence is the coherence of an entire local reality.  This means the combined strength of all corealities that overlap it as well as the personal coherence of the witness of that local reality.  A local reality that ceases to overlap with others and where the witness has no coherence ceases to exist (taking all its quanta with it).

Temporal coherence

Temporal coherence is the coherence of an entire spacetime area (for example, a city across all times, or all objects in a timeslice).  Spacetimes are cohered by all the realities that contain quanta within them and all the Hilbertspace branches that precede them.  A spacetime that has no temporal coherence ceases to exist and decoheres any branches that are not shared by a non-local branch.  

Branch coherence

Each branch of the Tree of Time has a coherence comprised of the Hilbertspace it represents.  Two separate branches may both confer infinite possible futures, however they may have different degrees of infinity (as both are actually transfinite).

Decoherence and merging

Without going into this too in-depth here (see chapter on Setting), the decoherence of enough things found within weaken branches in the Tree of Time enough that they 'fall off', pruning infinite futures that are found within.  Branches can decohere due to entropy or due to cohesive events (which make one branch stronger at the sacrifice of others).  Imagine the scenario where Frank sings a song in the shower in the morning.  One branch may exist for every song that he song and every note that he hit.  However, let's say his singing cannot be heard to anyone but himself.  He is then killed by an electricity leak into the water supply.  The song choice has no effect in ANY of the branches on events leading to him being electrocuted and therefore in the branches that follow his death (in the branch in which he dies), all the different 'song' branches converge.  

The Ringnet

Within a given timeslice of a given branch there exists a combination of witwork and dependent event condition coherences that form the pith of the timeslice, much like the pith within a tree.  These are the most strongly cohered residence of the temporality.  The lesser cohered extend outward forming networks and rings.  



The Semiself

Modern timeline characters (humanity or otherwise) have a different concept of 'self' than we think of today or for traditional game characters.  This is due largely to being constantly plugged into greater and other consciousnesses (think if your brain were connected directly to the internet and then the internet advanced by a couple millennia).  Characters routinely experience through memories and senses not attached to their physical bodymind, quite often concurrently (many at a time).  

A good analogy of this is the difference between playing a specific piece of music as it was written (with specific emphasis, crescendo, pianissimo, etc) and a bunch of jazz musicians improvising around a key.  The semiself, or as it is sometimes called the improvised self is much more like the jazz example - it is loosely defined by the musicians involved, the key, the instruments, the tempo and the audience.  No single component or formula can be said to define the 'song' - a musician could take a break and be replaced by another, the key could change gradually over time via modes, the tempo could shift up and down.  

More on this later with the Mechanics (Emptyform) and Setting chapters (Net Transcendence, Observational Networks).  

Jumping



Jumping is the process of shifting your local reality to a new point of view.  This new viewpoint can be in an entirely different spacetime and in an entirely different form.  There are many jumping techniques but they all have in common the two steps.  Step One is to observe the form and location that you with to jump to.  Step Two is to move into that form.  The single term 'jumping' actually covers a wide variety of cases, so let us examine them further:


Here are some of the most common scenarios: