In the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of The Science of Discworld II<\/i>, I talk about origins and Granny Weatherwax\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advice. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
You know, there was bound to be one of these, and this one is it. Chapter eighteen pretty much went over my head? I understood a solid chunk of the stuff about the laws of thermodynamics, but much of the other stuff was just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m simply not knowledgeable enough to comprehend it. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna poke fun at myself, because this line made me feel super underprepared:<\/p>\n
See? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simple. Not magical at all\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Oh my god, all of that was SIMPLE? Help me, I barely understood it! However, unlike the last review, I did<\/i> have an interesting memory triggered by this chapter. At the start of the second half, Stewart and Cohen spent a significant amount of time talking about the concept of entropy, both Shannon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s concept of it and the term you find in physics. On video, I remarked that I initially thought the book was going to discuss the latter because that was<\/i> the one I was also familiar with. How? Well, when I was a kid, I was lucky enough to be introduced to a very influential punk band by the name of Bad Religion, and they came to mean a lot to my life personally. (So much so that I have two of their logos tattooed on me, including the one from the album I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m about to talk about.) On their album Against The Grain<\/i>, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a song called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Entropy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and it was my introduction to the concept:<\/p>\n Random blobs of power<\/p>\n Expressed as that which we all disregard<\/p>\n Ordered states of nature<\/p>\n On a scale which no one thinks about<\/p>\n Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak to me of anarchy or peace or calm revolt, man<\/p>\n You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in a play of slow decay orchestrated by Boltzmann<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entropy<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a human issue<\/p>\n Entropy<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s matter of course<\/p>\n Entropy<\/p>\n Energy at all levels<\/p>\n Entropy<\/p>\n From it, you can not divorce<\/p>\n And your pathetic moans of suffrage tend to lose all significance<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly a strict interpretation of it, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more a statement of pessimism than anything else, but when I later heard that term in a science class in seventh grade, I understood it. I knew what it was! And as I saw it applied to the context in which it was intended, I felt pretty damn pleased with myself.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, my question for all of you: What is an unlikely place you learned something from? A ton of bands taught me shit about history, politics, and the nature of oppression, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the only unlikely source of learning. Because let me tell you, as fictional as the show was, The X-Files<\/i> taught me so many scientific principles or psychological issues or bits of history that I otherwise would not have known. And I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the show was ever deliberately intended to educate people, but it did<\/i>. For a long while, I actually wanted to be a forensic pathologist because of Dana Scully. I later learned that I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually handle gore, so WHOOPS, PROBABLY A BAD CAREER MOVE. Still, I know there are countless people who were inspired by Scully to pursue a life in the sciences, and it fills my heart with joy.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All right, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about the Discworld story! In the last review, I wondered how the wizards were going to convince Granny to even get involved, but I realize now I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really thinking about this correctly. They just needed a bit of direction, not her accompaniment. Look, I just wanted to see them interact in person because any sort of scene with Ridcully and Granny Weatherwax in it was bound to be chaotic or terrifying or hilarious. But this fascinates me, too, since there are few characters within the world of this series who understand the power of a story more than Esme Weatherwax. So, it makes since that once approached with a problem\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I assume Ponder told her it as best as he could\u00e2\u20ac\u201dshe would suggest changing<\/i> the story. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so simple on the surface, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a deeply complex notion, one the wizards IMMEDIATELY struggle with. Change it where<\/i>? How? At this point, religion is stronger than anything else in Roundworld, and by that, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly the kind that results in this:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And a few murders, some torturing, that sort of thing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n But Granny wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t suggest this if it were not possible. Somewhere in time, these wizards can insert a new narrative and push humans in the right direction. Perhaps at the very, very<\/i> beginning? Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you need to go further back to counter the influence of the elves? I suggest that because of the time-reversing mentioned in chapter eighteen. If the wizards are going to get guidance \u00e2\u20ac\u0153from books written in different futures,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d then it stands to reason they could trace their way back to a different beginning and change that<\/i> part. Right? OH, THIS IS GONNA BE FUN.<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/qQ4OAQ4P4q8<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of The Science of Discworld II, I talk about origins and Granny Weatherwax\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advice. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,552],"class_list":["post-4738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-science-of-discworld-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}