The Mind War - A new setting idea

[Nomadic]

Warning: Below you will find only madness, the ramblings of the sleep deprived, trains of thought without a track, oh and possibly a few interesting tidbits regarding a strange setting. Skip to the very bottom for the super-short condensed version, if you like that version skip back up to the top and begin from there, and then when you get to the bottom again... stop.

[ooc]Perhaps I've been reading too much Prachett and Adams lately, or perhaps I just shouldn't be having a snack just before bedtime. Whatever the case I had the most peculiar dream, partly peculiar in that I don't remember at all what it was about. That in itself is unremarkable, everyone has dreams like that. What was interesting about this was that I woke up in the middle of the night having had this occurrence and it led to a strange train of rambling thought, the most well known of beasts amongst us storytellers known as the stream of consciousness. As you may have noticed from my writing as of this moment my brain is still struggling with the monster and it may be that when I wake tomorrow morning I will regret the whole ordeal and write it off as the mad ramblings of the sleep deprived.
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At any rate it was as I said a strange line of thought not far removed from the worlds of the hitchhikers guide or the discworld in their playful disdain for boring things such as logic and reason. A world in which those afraid of the one universal law seek to keep it hidden lest the common man unlock its powers. The universal law? There are no laws, save those we choose to make for ourselves. Humans are very willing to accept laws imposed upon our minds and we make up rules where they don't nor shouldn't exist. This is one of the things that gets in the way of a creative mind in the real world. What if though this didn't apply only to mental exercises but to physical reality itself. What if the universe was an entity shaped by our own beliefs of what it should be. The sun did orbit the earth once, until we found out that it really didn't, and now the earth orbits the sun. At least it does for those who believe so. Reality is a malleable form shaped by the perceptions of the individual. For most of the population that perception is taught from birth to adhere to a series of universal scientific laws which have so penetrated the global human culture that they have cemented themselves into reality. For a few however the reality isn't quite so real. For you see these individuals have discovered the universal truth and much like the worlds masters they can bend it to their will. However, they differ in one major aspect. While the masters seek to hold this power for their own, a goal formed from their fear of what might happen if anybody could bend reality to their will, these newcomers, having uncovered the truth, seek to spread it to the people and make the fears of these oppressors come true. However the masters have had a long time to learn and to practice and to cement within the populace a willful disbelief of such magics and so for many years a shadow war has waged behind the stages between the puppet masters and these newly unstrung marionettes, no longer willing to dance to the tune played for them.[/ooc]
What is this exactly? Essentially it comes down to the fact that I see so many people talking about using magic in their setting yet falling back on Vancian Magic which has resulted in an interesting magic as technology situation. Don't get me wrong, if you want to use Vancian Magic or a variation and call it magic that's fine and a perfectly reasonable use of the term. This is just me yearning for the magic of Merlin so to speak. Magic for me is not just something that defies physics, but that defies logical thought itself. Science tells us that gravity pulls objects towards each other such that a person standing on the ground will never be able to fly away without the aid of wings (whose workings science also lays out for us). Meanwhile magic says that one may fly by, in the words of dear Mr Adams, simply falling and missing the ground. Science says that you cannot create nor destroy matter/energy just change its state. Magic holds a gold bar up to a mirror, reaches over and grabs its clone, then laughs at science all the way to the bank. For me magic isn't a set of rules that let you bypass physics its the realization that there are no rules and your ability to do anything is limited only by your imagination and your will to acknowledge that one fact and couple it with said creativity.

So wrapped around this concept is the shell of a setting. Essentially Group A uncovered the universal truth that the universe is shaped by the perceptions of all intelligent beings and not by some arbitrary universal rules. The universe and intelligence are interlinked in a strang chicken and egg paradox that it would be better not to think to hard about as the illogicality might fry your brain. Having harnessed this power they have begun shaping it into what they think the universe should be by brainwashing the greater part of humanity into believing them, creating a sort of reality warping engine from the collective minds of all humans. From this machine Group B has sprung. A small group of people who have also discovered the truth, and also discovered what Group A has been doing with that truth. They believe that each human should be free to shape their own reality as they see fit and have been waging war against Group A in an attempt to wrest control from them. However it isn't easy as Group A has firmly entrenched humanity within their own views of reality to the point that humans will ignore proof given to the contrary by Group B, instead grasping for an explanation within the worldview given to them by Group A. The war, oddly enough has been largely mundane. While each person with the truth can do incredible things, doing them stretches the mind between its rational foundations (even with reality as it is the human mind does have a base in logical thinking) and the chaotic reality of reality. The more someone bends the universe the more it bends them until everything becomes so unreal that the person finds themselves stuck in a world of illusions and clouds where they are no longer capable of believing that anything is real and has any point. Mechanically this would be a rationality score kind of like the madness score in the Cthulhu games, in this case a little irrationality at all times is important to avoid getting stuck within the reality of the first group, but an overuse of this magic might leave you drifting into oblivion. And so the conflict goes on between two groups balancing between alternate fates (even Group A is at risk of falling for its own reality if it isn't careful) while the everyday person goes about their daily lives, unaware that they are the spoils of an unseen war.

TL;DR Version - Two groups fighting over the future of humanity and the universe itself using troll physics ;)

[Kalontas]

It's an interesting thought, certainly; and believe it or not, but it's one of the ancient philosophical schools - people really did believe that world is shaped by our beliefs and perceptions - that laws of physics are so rigid only because we want them to be, because our mind is "orderly" and we want the universe to have some constants. In a mind of an insane person, the physics itself bends to his insanity.

Not really inventing the wheel, but an interesting concept certainly. Your dream is probably how Lovecraft started writing his ramblings, and look - people love him.

[Ghostman]

How do you figure young children and "mentally challenged" people fit into this scheme? Do you presume that humanity's natural inclination toward logic would be enough to keep these more imaginative minds from accidentally triggering universe-warping events, even at minor scale?

[LordVreeg]

The human mind craves touchpoints and consistency.  Witness how our eyes will complete an image that is not there and our yearning for codification.
One would think any human mind that moves outside this comfort zone would not remain sane in any way we see the word for long.

[Ninja D!]

I think the whole point is that the way we see sanity is not right.

I like the idea.

[Superfluous Crow]

I could see this as a matrix-meets-inception sort of setting set on our earth.
Essentially, the world as we perceive it is akin to a communal dream influenced by the lucid dreaming of those who know the secret.

[Nomadic]

How do you figure young children and "mentally challenged" people fit into this scheme? Do you presume that humanity's natural inclination toward logic would be enough to keep these more imaginative minds from accidentally triggering universe-warping events, even at minor scale?

To some degree yes. Children begin their education from a very early age in most societies and part of that education is learning how the universe around them works. Each mind has the ability to challenge that but a mind that is open and learning without bias is prone to being caught by the snares of the masters as the universal laws are so ingrained into the human mind that they have taken on a life of their own so to speak. For those who have not yet been snared (newborns) and those that cannot be snared (the mentally challenged) the logical basis of the mind would hold sway over them such that there aren't constantly little events going on or even lots of big events. This doesn't mean they don't happen. The thing is that the masters have such a leash on the population through their indoctrination that humans will actively refuse to believe something is really happening or if they can't disbelieve it totally will grasp for a rational explanation within the scientific rules given to them. Many hoaxes and urban legends here have a basis in reality in that someone actually did something that cannot happen and it was written off as smoke and mirrors or a tall tale made up to impress people. Ghosts, disappearances, UFOs, the monsters of urban legends, various miracles found within holy books, all can be traced back to the knowledge of the single universal truth.

[Kindling]

Ghosts, disappearances, UFOs, the monsters of urban legends, various miracles found within holy books, all can be traced back to the knowledge of the single universal truth.

Love this idea. Makes me think, you could potentially start a campaign as a "standard" paranormal-investigation stype scenario, then, once you've had the initial reveal of like, it was vampires, or it was a ghost, or whatever, you could have the second reveal of, but the vampire/ghost only existed due to the Single Universal Truth, and then have that lead into the campaign proper :)

[Nomadic]

I actually had an interesting chat with my sister (another gamer with a vested interest in storytelling and roleplay) about the implications of such a setting and between the two of us we hammered a bit more flesh into this thing's skeleton.

Firstly the two groups which we started calling the "progressives" and the "traditionalists" are split along ideological lines. The traditionalists fear that letting each person realize the truth would result in chaotic end times of the universe with each person shaping reality to their own whims such that the universe would cease to be a solid entity and would instead become a seething cauldron of microverses, effectively losing all cohesion. The progressives meanwhile believe that such an outcome would not necessarily be a doomsday scenario instead looking at it as an opportunity for each and every person to have their very own cosmic canvas to paint upon, a veritable artists utopia. The traditionalists view the progressives as dangerous madmen who seek to undo the fabric of reality. Meanwhile the progressives see the traditionalists as vicious jail keepers who imprison the minds of innocent people in order to enforce their own reality upon others.

Secondly sentience IS the universe. Basically the universe is a giant brain of sorts and each intelligent being within it is a synapse. We are individually parts of the universe and all of our surroundings and experiences are nothing more than perceptions, not being truly real things. As such what we believe directly influences what we perceive. Additionally our connection with each other means that the more something is believed the more it affects the other "synapses" around the believer. So the more people you have believing something the more it gets locked into the universe's perception of it. This means that by default a child will be pulled into the universal train of thought due to their link to all other thinking beings. To violate a universal "rule" you must believe something different strong enough that it overpowers that link within yourself. This means several things...

Firstly it means that it is easier to modify a minor thing than a major thing. Disbelieving gravity requires a huge mental leap to pull off, on the other hand believing that you can make a 50 foot leap across a chasm if you jump hard enough is much easier. The first one requires you to flatly deny an ingrained law while the second only requires you to stretch it a bit. Secondly, when linked to the fact that all people are tied together, if you believe something enough your belief can actually leak into other people's minds and influence their own. Meaning that if you have the force of will you can create effects that will do things to others. This is part of why the progressives haven't been able to just perform an obvious miracle in public and get a bunch of believers from it. If you want to leap across a 50ft chasm by yourself that's not too hard as long as you believe it. But believing it enough to counteract the beliefs of others watching you who "know" that you can't do it is much more difficult. Doing something on a grand scale in front of a crowd is for those with an iron will and a mind that is extremely open to the idea of a malleable universe (in short a person that believes that they know what the universe can do better than the universe does... aka: borderline insane). On top of that belief reinforces itself more the more people you have believing it. So if you do a "miracle" for someone the common belief they are linked to will cause them to look for answers within said belief, making it really hard to get someone to break away from the crowd and open their mind.

[LordVreeg]

I like a lot of this.  
The belief of the unwashed still matters...but the more people who see or are affected by a 'ruptural' event, the harder it is to perform as one must 'out-beieve' all of them.

[Weave]

Ya know, I had a setting that worked almost exactly like this. I believe I posted some questions about it when I first got here... I'll see if I can dig up the thread - maybe it'll have some useful information in it.

I obviously love this idea, but I think it demands a lot of serious thought and commitment to really get going.

For instance, fairy tales are prominent even in our modern age. Will things such as the boogeyman or the chupacabra exist due to the mass belief in them (or do enough people recognize them as unreal entities? What about children who might not be old enough to tell the difference?)

I had a group of enlightened people (your "traditionalists," if you will), who ascended themselves into the higher ranks of society. Collectively, they brewed up a scheme to manipulate the minds of everyone else: they, being the kings and queens and all that, gathered to inform the populace that a slave race was crossing the seas to make the lives of even the lowliest peasant easier. They seeded ideas of them being incredibly strong, powerful, smart, etc., so that eventually the populace willed them into existence, and, lo and behold, ships came appeared on the horizon. I then had to start thinking of what sort of power a "believed" thing has, and how mutable it is. I had the slave race actually rebel and cause this great war, since they were believed to be so gifted and powerful, and they became nearly unstoppable.

Anyways, those are just some things I thought of. I'll look for the thread when I can...

EDIT: Here it is!

[Mason]

Magicians are illusionists...what do they call it..suspension of disbelief. If I am reading this right magic is based on just that-not just for the audience but for the caster as well? It seems you have to 'trick' your mind into believing something you have believed for your whole life.
 In your example of leaping across a 50 ft. gap and average man knows without a doubt that he can't jump that far. It seems like fear would be a major factor in overcoming the obstacles of bending the world around you. Very Matrixy(the first movie concepts)-very cool stuff, thanks for the read.

[Nomadic]

EDIT: Here it is!

Magicians are illusionists...what do they call it..suspension of disbelief. If I am reading this right magic is based on just that-not just for the audience but for the caster as well? It seems you have to 'trick' your mind into believing something you have believed for your whole life. In your example of leaping across a 50 ft. gap and average man knows without a doubt that he can't jump that far. It seems like fear would be a major factor in overcoming the obstacles of bending the world around you. Very Matrixy(the first movie concepts)-very cool stuff, thanks for the read.
[/quote]

Yes that's pretty much the core of it and I imagine that fear is a huge part of it (hence why you have to be at least a little crazy to use magic).

[Ghostman]

What would be the effect on religion? I think isolationistic radical sects and the like would be particularly interesting here, given how they tend to be both very strong on the blind faith side of things and congregate geographically into exclusive communities, where there won't be many skeptical outsiders to observe what's happening.

If as you say it becomes much easier to manage that 50 foot leap when you don't have to convince any onlookers but only yourself, then I'd imagine that zany cults gathered about charismatic preachers would end up with all manner of miracles manifesting in their gatherings. After all, they'd be reinforcing each other's belief that it's possible, all the while not suffering any interference from non-believers.

[Nomadic]

What would be the effect on religion? I think isolationistic radical sects and the like would be particularly interesting here, given how they tend to be both very strong on the blind faith side of things and congregate geographically into exclusive communities, where there won't be many skeptical outsiders to observe what's happening.

If as you say it becomes much easier to manage that 50 foot leap when you don't have to convince any onlookers but only yourself, then I'd imagine that zany cults gathered about charismatic preachers would end up with all manner of miracles manifesting in their gatherings. After all, they'd be reinforcing each other's belief that it's possible, all the while not suffering any interference from non-believers.

Ever heard of faith healing before? :)