Dwemer Zero : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Sun May 05, 2013 7:05 am

Dear Dinmenel,

I was doing some spring cleaning the other day (what piles of junk build up when one is scrambling through dungeons for the better part of a year!), and found this spore-record buried in a honeypot under the bed. I recognized it immediately as a transcript from one of my guest-lectures with Gwylim's Dwemer Studies Department and thought it might perhaps be of interest to your research into the fate of Nirn's most interesting race.

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Official Spore Transcript

University of Gwylim - Understanding Dwemer Mathemagics 201

Guest Lecture Series: The Numerology of Kagrenec, with Dr. Toesock

Fredas, 3rd of Second Seed, 4E 213

Welcome students. We shall be covering some dangerous topics today, so please hang onto your self-love and avoid vaporizing until after class. Complementary UoG mirrors will be provided at the front to aid you in this regard.

Much has been made of the Dwemer's oft-cited ability to divide by zero. How can this be? For though the Dwemer were devoted to the denial of the earthbones, they lived on the same Nirn that surrounds us, and thus the laws which they endeavored to ignore must therefore have been explained away through pseudo-logical formulae which gave firm foundation to the paradoxes they cherished.

The solution is to see zero through Dwemeri eyes. I propose that the Dwemer viewed zero not as the infinitesimally small, but rather as the unfathomably large. Imagine we had laid out before us all of the real numbers, ...-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3... and on and on. To discover the largest of these numbers, we would then sum them all together, giving a result of zero. Zero, thus, (which we shall for now call ald-zero) is the highest subgradient. It represents the Void that preceded Anu and Padomay. It represents the godhead - the gestalt entity which is the sum of all subgradients. It is both infinite and empty. Is it any wonder that the Dwemer believed in the fundamental unreality of the universe? For if the godhead is nothing, then what is Nirn?

Now, this infinite zero is easily divided into non-zero numbers. We can, for example, divide it in half (a mathemagical function termed "AE"), resulting in two new numbers - the sum of all numbers less than -1, and the sum of all numbers greater than +1. The result is positive and negative infinity - two mirror opposites. Let us call the positive infinity Anu, and the negative infinity Padomay, parts of whom recombine and divide further and further along the subgradient progression. As it was written: "First was Void, which became split by AE. Anu and Padomay came next and with their first brush came the Aurbis." Or written in standard mathemagical notation: 0/AE = (-∞) +( +∞)

So then, where does the division end? When you reach an indivisible number - the final subgradient. Herein lies a problem, for ald-zero is clearly not indivisible. However, Dwemer writings indicate the existence of a second existing Dwemer concept of zero. From a common Dwemer nursery rhyme:

"Afternoon, Aurbis, the reports are true, there is a type of zero still to be discovered, all [critics- ?] agree."

Here we have a theoretical new number which was hoped for and sought after. Could this be zero as WE see it? The zero which divided by any number yields only itself? Reaching such a number would certainly put a stop to subgradience. The keener students have probably already noted that the technical term for Amaranth - "Z state" is conceivably a short form of the term zero-state. But how to get there? Eventually subgradience will approach an asymptote, because the only rational number which can be divided into zero is zero itself. In other words, how can one reach Amaranth without already being in the Amaranth state? This accounts for the great difficulty one encounters in ascending. The normal subgradient process will not suffice.

Here we come to the point of the matter. Because the Dwemer saw ald-zero as a number of infinite size, they were able to divide by it to reach nu-zero: the indivisible amaranth. Dividing a finite number by an infinite one will turn a nu-zero result, and thus the solution to this metaphysical problem is clear: to divide the indivisible by ald-zero - godhead. You can not become zero without breaking into an infinite number of pieces. This is the soul-fragmentation the Dwemer attempted in Numidium.

Whether this was indeed a legitimate path to Amaranth remains unknown - many current scholars consider this intentional dissemination of self into the infinite godhead to be tantamount to suicide - zero sum, it is often termed. Is zero to be feared or venerated? Is it death or is it ascension? Is it the destruction of self, or the self's most complete revelation?

Class is dismissed. Your first assignment: A 500 word anolysis of the implication of nu-zero as Amaranth.

» Sat May 04, 2013 11:05 pm

A splendid lecture. I had heard it explained to me earlier by a friend of mine, then a Gwylim student. She offered further insight by way of an anology, elaborating on what she claimed was a still different variety of zero:

Writing "Anu" on one of her talons and "Padomay" on another, she held them at right angles, like Geth, see. She said that we could redefine "sum" as the inner product of anything in either "digit-space", Anuic or Padomaic. When you sum two things in Anuic-space, see, you get further Anuity, and if you sum anything Anuic with anything Padomaic, you get Void. So, I asked, what is AE, this sundering function? She smirked and answered that it could not be known. When you divide the Void, absolutely anything could result, and so AE was undefined under this system. And so her zero, the "rectilinear-digit-product", was a New Zero, or so she claimed.

Her third talon she then held up, pointing away from either of the other two. She showed that this would function exactly like an Anu or Padomay digit-space but that there was no name for it yet. I asked her politely at this point what any of this meant, and how exactly she thought it described Dwemer schools of thought. At this she frowned and ushered me away, as if I had offended her. Still, it was an interesting conversation.

» Sun May 05, 2013 10:31 am

Unfortunately, as we have learned from the Armfion Model (full text coming soon to a Memospore near you), it is nearly impossible to fully calculate a pre-configured state of any particle much larger than a kaleidocule. Even 5th Era Digitals have serious thermal issues when attempting to calculate larger states.

However, we can accurately encapsulate the potential of a single kaleidocule through the use of Bedt-Koht formulas, http://i.imgur.com/jqRtN7j.gif. Currently, those scholars wishing to attempt to map the full wave function of AE in its entirety will have to make due with studying the behavior of the infinitely minuscule micro-echo of the AE function, and the sub-atomos that dwell within.

» Sun May 05, 2013 9:33 am

Goodness, Doc Sock. Has the help-my-department-justify-its-existence circuit really begun so early this year?

» Sun May 05, 2013 4:00 am

Interestingly enough, the Yokudo-Redguard mathsmen hold to a doctrine that ties into the concept of ald-zero very well. They claim, influenced as they are by Satakalan mythology, that reality as a whole is a sinusoid, representative of Satakal's infinite self-devouring (though certain Ouroborean Schools make the claim that Satakal merely grasps the end of its tail rather than actively eating itself, in which case Satakal and thus reality is instead a sinus). The negative and positive amplitudes, repeated indefinitely, serve as a clear allegory of the infinite negative and the infinite positive, which come together in Satakal as the ald-zero; why do you think that zero is shaped like the loop of an ouroboros?

» Sat May 04, 2013 11:43 pm

Dear Toesock,

I find the contents of your discarded honeypot intriguingly familiar. Where did you purchase that, my dear? Or was it perhaps a gift...? Well, no matter. The important thing is the inquiry.

I concur nearly completely with the metaphysical concepts you present. You postulate that the Dwemer sought to divide themselves into infinitely many fragments, and that they would do this by dividing by godhead. I am not certain that this is what they intended, exactly - as they used the suffering of Lorkhan, not the original godhead - but it certainly makes sense as a method that could have been successful.

Consider this, though: both 'types of zero' are just different perspectives on the same thing. That is to say, all zeros are both infinitely large and absolutely empty at all times and untimes. Thus, the 'regenerated' zeros that would result from the division of a discrete subset of the godhead by itself (ald-zero, as you have named it) would each contain their own positive and negative infinities; an infinity of infinite zeros. You need no reminder, I know, but I will leave this tidbit here for the sake of your students:

I remain, as always, your

Dinmenel