There it is again - is appearance more important than potential? Bretons have certain magical affinities that are said to be a product of their mer-lines ... Only the male Bosmer became smaller - the females remained tall - that is not likely genetic right?

Get back to it and call it mystical or if you want mundane equivalents for the sake of discussion then it's mind/emotion/divine over the purely physical. And looking at how much Dagoth Ur's 'creatures' changed we have a very clear and extreme example of the mind and the divine meeting up and changing living beings if what has been written and said in-game about the will and intelligence of the infected having some influence on the way they turn out. I even got to wondering if my nerevarine actually remained true to his nature because he had so much potential, had developed so far using potions and such to boost attributes, had so much more control over his destiny than most other folks on Vvardenfell and damn well refused to give in to Dagoth Ur!

I suppose not. There isn't much more to say about stars other than they're holes in the inner outer surface of Oblivion. http://www.imperial-library.info/content/cosmology
And there hasn't been any mention that space is breathable or not. Although it does say it's infinite.



That's true.



Well aren't mutations what cause evolution over thousands of millions of years? Perhaps there were small mutations in the Bretons at one point in time.



That sums up the answer pretty much there, I guess.




So evolution on Nirn happens really according to what the divine et'ada wish to happen. If it's in that case, then things can evolve backwards, forwards, sideways or inside-out, so to speak.
I was also wondering why science on Nirn hasn't evolved in the sense of "what are we made of?" Altmer have been around for thousands of years and there has never been any mention of one of them taking a magnifying lens to their skin and going "I wonder what my skin would look like if I could get an even closer look". I know dwarves were the most scientific. I can also understand why trains hadn't been invented, since magic and teleportation are more common. But on a larger scale, why hasn't science on Nirn produced speculation and theories as to how far the aurbis is or how bright would a star be if you go too close to the aperture or what the other side of Aetherius looks like? The questions I have are on a much larger scale and are mostly "why". Surely Nirnians must have the same types of questions that we do here on earth. Curiosity is in everyone in some form or another. Has no Tamrielian ever wanted to travel out to space before? And with magic being so abundant in Mundus, it would seem like people would have figured out a means to travel there by now, given that fact that High Elves were created already being an advanced race from the start.

Lamarkian evolution has been discredited, but the new study of epigenetics does suggest that environmental factors that have a physiological effect on the parent will have a geneological effect on the offspring. This is do to certain genetic "markers" being switched "on" or "off."

It's an interesting discussion. For one, we have creation myths in the Elderscrolls, which if taken literally deny the chance of evolution. Of course, Earth has it's own million creation myths which would do the same thing. Frankly I would imagine a somewhat twisted version of Darwinian evolution...basically to include more crackpot theories from earlier human sciences, like the idea that two completely different species could made and produce a hybrid with mixed traits, such as a hippogriff being part horse and part eagle, etc.

Hold that thought - it's like it's the end-point of a black hole = the opposite of a star

There is theory that when a star goes down a certain road of development it either becomes a singularity of a black hole - and that black holes go to other universes. But ofc this is not about RL physics




mutations cause evolution within years or decades - a mutated species can claim an evolutionary niche and propagate very swiftly




Remember in Morrowind the side quest with the naturalists studying the mating habits of the Kagouti - is that the entire scope of dunmer or Tamriellian scolarship, that tiny bit of a notebook? Nah - it's part of a notebook that is just one of many that guy had been writing - remember that mer are very long-lived. what we are seeing is cameos within a grand play. There are likely thousands of animals that you just don't see in-game because it's not yet doable in the format that games use. I once encouraged foolks to start making books about the natural world of Tamriel for a mod and folks were coming up with all kindsa stuff about the life-cycles and habitats and such of just the creatures that we know so that each creature would have a full page of it's own - that would have run into tens of books eventually ...

Then look at the 'scientific' leanings of that Telvani Lord with the half-imperial castle who was studying the dwemmer artifacts - so there is science of a Tamriellian nature that defines things in semi-mystical terms that are as carefully calculated and technically sophisticated as anything you might find in RL scientific history ... question has to be: at what stage (comparatively) is Tamriel in that process? Do we have the language let alone the conceptual ability to describe it in English or whatever?

Turning that towards the specific question of evolution, if that time traveller in the Love Letters was a composite being then it would make sense to assume that his 'parts' were much smaller than present day Tamriellians are given he appeared as of normal size. So I have been wondering if the direction of Tamriellian scientific enquiry is actually shaping their forms = in studying the microscopic would succeeding Tamriellian generations become much smaller? If so beings from the future might form a larger composite being in order to interface with 'primitive' Tamriellians.

edit @ proweler - I tend to see the later stuff as an evolution of the Lamarkian - and accept that I should have kept things tighter with the refereces. I tend to shy away from the word eugenics because of the uses to which it has been put but reproduction is undeniabley a process of communication and negociation. Hamanity is a very diverse species in both appearance and other physical characteristics. I have no doubt that events in one's life affect one's children - I do doubt that we are effectively at the stage where we can confidnetly predict the extent of those effects or mould them with the knowledge we have right now because we do not yet know enough of what makes animals/humans tick.

This thread is starting to get a bit too much into the specifics of real life evolution. I suggest we be careful.

The Altmer would be the last people to question who they are, since they are absolutely convinced that they are gods. Their science revolves around making themselves perfect (through selective breeding and who knows what else), not around figuring out what they are.


Just because we've not heard them doesn't mean they aren't there. The existence of the cosmology text and the Imperial Mananauts proves the existence of some pretty advanced astronomical thought. The questions of real life astronomy don't matter to them because their astronomy is entirely different. "Which planet revolves around which" is not important if planets are really infinite divine planes, and the subtleties of Darwinian evolution aren't a concern when gods can alter your form at will. Furthermore, the vast majority of people just doesn't have the time to concern themselves with things like this. Even among mages more practical pursuits are understandably more popular.

Stars are visible as holes in an infinite sphere because we can't perceive multiple overlapping infinities. You can't get closer to the end of infinity, so stars will alway appear as small holes emitting light. Physical black holes can't exist because physical stars (i.e. balls of fusion) don't exist. This is not to say that the black hole can't exist as a metaphorical equivalent of a Tamrielic concept, but it wouldn't be as we know it.


The Imperial Mananauts and the Sunbirds of Alinor have.



wut.

Everything is always changing so my guess is that evolution does work in TES world just like it does in real life. Then again, Nirn isn't actually a planet, the night sky is actually Oblivion, stars are really "bridges" to Aetherius and the two moons that rotate around Nirn are actually dead (minor?) gods. So your guess is as good as mine...

Loads of folks have felt that way. Most of us have gone though a stage of stating that mundane explanatiuons satisfy - and then we get stuff coming from the devs (MK in particular) that places the basis of stuff firmly on the shoulders of the divine/mystical. So then off we go back to the drawing board.

re:
seems like althought the basis of Tamriellian 'science' is divine/mystical the effects appear to a large degree all too physical. And their interpretation a matter of perspective. Whether a thing is 'better' because it is larger is a matter of opinion or point of view for example. I have no problems with turning things upside down to look at them from a new perspective. If you want RL then the start of the Universe aka the big bang appears to have started as something comparatively small with a lot of potential. So until a dev makes up his mind on this question I am happy to play about with it and try to get into the spirit of that aspect of the Love Letters and the stuff that MK's posted that I have seen. Come to think of it as a modder I have no qualms about creating a character who thinks that the opposite of what we know as Lore is true ... if that fits a scenario. In any case I enjoy exploring such ideas because sometimes they are fruitful

I still have no idea what you are trying to say. Why would the loveletter be from a "composite being" made of "smaller parts" (people of shorter stature?) than modern humans? Why would studying something small make you small? Why would future-folks be larger? What does better = larger have to do with anything? I guess you're trying to get at Mythopoeia, but thats not how it works. Its the modification of metaphysical reality through myth, not http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/Signamancy.

As for going against the established lore: its all fine and dandy in mods and in theoretical discussion, but you can't just dump it into the middle of a thread with no explanation. Thats the sort of thing that gets people confused. In other words, give us a disclaimer or something.

I wonder sometimes if the Godhead is a single person within a whole other universe. Like a multiverse, or a universe within a universe. And when I use the word universe, I'm using it as a collective whole for Aurbis, Oblivion, Aetherius, Mundus, Void, and all that other dimensions. Isn't the word "aurbis" equivalent to our word "universe"?
You know what I should do? I mean, besides read the lore on TIP, is ask MK some of these questions. The worst he could do is not respond.

No, he could respond with something like this:

That's freakin' brilliant. I hate to ask what your question was.

I can't exactly answer your question as I don't really belive in evolution

Summon Mudcrab for 1 second
Soultrap on Target for 1 second

Permanent, brand new mudcrab from nowhere.

Evolution denied.

Okay, someone mentioned that science is enhanced and warped by magic.

Nope.

Magic is science on Nirn. In the real world, there is a specific amount of energy and matter in the universe and while one may convert to another the actual number does not change. On Nirn they do, because magic is science and in magic energy and matter are made from nothing. That means the fundamental laws of Earth science are not the same as Nirn-science and therefore the two are different and incompatible.

Really, I don't get this fascination with bending fantasy that is avowedly unreal to real shapes that have no place in it.

But haven't we already reached the final subgradient?

Next to last.

Ulp - and what happens then????

ps I have no intention of walking in MK's footsteps ... he aleady does that to himself better than I ever could - but it was MK who first stated the time traveller is a composite being ... question is what does that mean? And it seemed that was something to do with evolution or the future. Ofc it may be an instance of spirits getting back together to form larger entities - or not

Define "subgradient".

The elvish idea that Creation keeps recreating itself and slowly gets less than itself. So Aedra recreate to Ehlnofey who recreate to Aldmer who recreate to the Mer. Each shift in grade goes down the track, hence subgradient refers to both the process of devolution and the barrier between two gradients.

Even if we did, it would still be a form of devolution, just one we've reached the end of. The fact that we are (almost) at the end necessitates that we next ascend. Its the classic cosmogonic cycle.

Reincarnation is borrowed, but evolution isn't.

Calling it devolution is missing the point what evolution is about, it would imply that evolution has a goal, which is not true (at least not for how the biology understands evolution). If there is any evolution it is cultural evolution and it is the culture what affects the biology.

Ascend, but in the sense that when you fall through the bottom you find yourself back at the top.

This is true. Each subgradient gets less. Like how the statue is less than the stone slab. Now, whether the progression from stone slab to statue is a devolution is another question.