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book pre-bfdia gijinka

the idea is that she's an explorer who goes around researching the world and stores her notes/findings in her journal!

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bfdi:tpot, powers, & infinite skill tree theory

skills trees usually show up in video games, they're a way of organising abilities; a path of skills that branch out onto other related paths of skills.

in battle for dream island:the power of two, two tells the contestants the the prize is, well, their 'limitless power', but im curious what that actually means

lets start simple by exploring what skills/powers/abilities are in the first place.

think of entities on earth; we are configured in many different ways and because of that, we can do many different things. for example, a fish would likely be more skilled in swimming in the water compared to a human, or, a tall person would find it easier to reach something up high compared to a short person, or how someone with poor-eyesight wouldn't usually see as well as someone without poor-eyesight. the point is, different configurations come with different abilities and restrictions. the restrictions are just the natural capping on how far your possible abilities reach out

in skill tree terms, it would mean that the skills of characters are locked to specific skills on a branch or branches. pie for example would likely never have the ability to set things on fire, or be immune to flames. firey, however (because of how he is configured), would be more attuned to fire-related skills on the tree. so, even across the 'object' species you get many different forms and ability configurations/possibilities, as you would for any type/group of entity.

where am i going with this?:

all entities in bfdi are restricted to certain skills on the skill tree

these skill restrictions are based on how the entity itself is configured

my big idea here is this: two's skill (limitless power) is a skill that removes this natural restriction from certain skills on the tree

what this means: two isn't omnipotent/all powerful, two just has the potential to become all powerful (i.e. to learn every skill on the skill tree)

if two wants to max out the skill tree, they got to work for it. all the limitless power does is fully open up the possibility space of learnable skills. if pie was given limitless power, maybe then -if she wanted to- she could learn fire-related abilities, for example. anyway, in this regard, 'limitless power' is more of a meta-type ability, as it has less to do with powers that relate to 'the world and its elements', and more to do with powers themselves/the skill tree

i like to imagine the bfdi power system as an infinite skill tree. a tree that goes all the way down and branches off into infinitely many branches. i imagine there are many different branches of power to learn from and master. two literally has access to the entire skill tree. they could learn it all - it would just take a lot time.

and that's infinite skill tree theory! thank you for reading! its been a while since i've done this. below will just be some extra notes and wondering about the theory and bfdi powers:

i wonder if twos learned abilities will disappear when they pass down their limitless power onto the winner. part of me thinks it would stay, as two would have the experiential knowledge of how to perform their abilities, but i don't know

while the entities of bfdi may be locked to certain skills (based on how they are configured), the restriction of the skill tree space can always be opened up with external tools, like how glasses can bring the ability for increased eyesight, or a ladder can provide the ability of increased verticality, or how a yoyleberry turns the user into a strong, heat-resistant metal. these magical tools give powers

i'd also like to point out the weird interactions you can set up when you get different abilities together. yoyleberry/yoylemetal give you immunity from fire and freeze juice, yellow tomatoes counter yoylemetal (im unsure if solely yellow tomatoes do this or if other fruits & veg are involved). with a few more types & interactions, you could set up some sort of bfdi trading card game!

anyways, the idea of tools opening up the natural restriction of abilities is interesting to me, because it feels like that's exactly how the limitless power im describing works. it kind of blurs the line between external tools and abilities that the user inherently has. perhaps, upon giving away their limitless power, the remaining abilities that two has is dependent on whether or not two developed the powers using that limitlessness or not

i feel like all the other algebraliens probably have this limitlessness skill as well. not just two! it makes sense to me that they all would. i mean, maths seems to be deeply embedded in the way the universe works, innit. look at the laws of physics or umm the cool mathematical stuff that nature finds itself making.. maths is wonderfully woven into things. it only makes sense to me that the power of these numerical characters would reflect that

thanks for reading!

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she's quite the star

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titletext[2]

hello folks. titletext[2] has released!

check it out over here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0t58Dl-66I

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last light of the lantern🌟

hfjone fanart for the osc discord art month 2023, day 30, the prompt was "winner"

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firey gets the cat powerup

(this is a late cross post from my twitter)

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bfb, roboty, and.. true callings?

lets talk about roboty!!!!!! roboty is a character who hasnt been spoken about much, and i want to dive into his mind and analyse him.

from the start, we can see that roboty seems to be quite distant from the objects. in bfb1, before four arrives, each object is given some screen time. it acts as an introduction to the objects and helps us get a feel of the characters.

roboty is not included.

from this, we can infer that roboty is antisocial, and doesnt spend his time with objects. we see more proof of this in episodes 2 and 6. in both instances, we see roboty relaxing in the waterfall area:

the waterfall is a place of comfort and peace.

moving on, later in bfb1, when four states that the prize for bfb is going to be a bfdi, we see the contestants visibly excited, even roboty. this might show that roboty is willing to compete in the show, in desire for the bfdi

however, this excitement is only brief. in bfb2, roboty leaves off to the waterfall during the challenge. he does not want to participate in the show. but why?

there are a multitude of reasons, but for one, i think it might be because of leafy. roboty and leafy dont see eye to eye very well, as evident in bfb1 where she misinterprets robotys response (14:35), and in bfb3.

she put a question mark over robotys level of loyalty. she doesnt know how loyal roboty is because she doesnt understand him that well. in fact, no one seems to understand roboty at all except for balloony and david.

i feel like this is where most of robotys avoidance of objects stems from. because he is unable to be understood, communication becomes impossible for him. this isnt helped by his static facial structure, either (it only further limits his outward expression).

no one seems to like roboty, and he is very aware of this:

translated:

bfdi18(in response to getting the least votes)(4:05): NO ONE LIKES ME bfb11(in response to getting the least votes, again)(1:00): IMHATED

this may be another reason as to why he is so distant. he knows the audience doesnt like him, and considering most of the objects do not understand him, he naturally falls into a defeatist attitude - and at times - is stubborn.

how i see it is that roboty doesnt enjoy being told what to do. we get a glimpse of this in bfb2:

leafy assigns roboty with the job of - what i can only assume is - breaking the jawbreakers (it doesnt explicitly show leafy telling roboty this, but because she’s the only one commanding the team, i think its safe to say it was her).

more evidently, in bfb5:

hold on, what is a “true calling”? we are first introduced to this phrase in bfb2, from leafy.

leafy synonymises this term with “job”, which, while being somewhat accurate, is quite insulting. true callings take time to be found, and are highly personal, so for leafy to have seemingly figured out someone else’s true calling - without even spending that much time with them - feels fake and rude. judging from cloudy’s response, he was pretty hurt from her comment, --

-- and i assume roboty was too, for the reasons above, and also because he already had a negative opinion towards leafy.

this brings clarity as to why roboty would be glad david found his true calling: david didn't need anybody’s help. he discovered his own calling independently; on his own. and in a sense, roboty wants to do the same. he doesn't want to listen to leafy or compete in bfb because he just doesn’t find enjoyment or get a sense of fulfillment from it, and he doesnt want to be forced into it, either.

i suppose this is why roboty wanders off to that lovely spot of his. im not sure what attunes him to the waterfall area specifically, but im sure the peace and quiet gives him time to think and find himself. however, roboty’s journey for self discovery seems to fall flat in episode 10, in which he is inevitably sent to the exit.

he no longer has access to the beloved waterfall, and is now surrounded by objects. because of his immobility, there is not much he can do, except fall into the same defeatist and hateful attitude mentioned earlier. his antisocial behaviour continues in bfb16:

firey jr is literally using him as a seat. almost all the objects see him as some sort of object. another instance of this dehumanisation is seen once again, where roboty is - most likely against their will - used as part of a tower to escape four.

if roboty was feeling vengeful and wanted to take his anger out, perhaps he could’ve destroyed the tower to stop the others from leaving. but he didnt. possible reasons may be because:

maybe he’s not petty

shares their desire for escape and has empathy

is not proactive

he would’ve stopped his friend, david, from escaping

he wants them to go so he’ll be by himself

too defeatist

i’m- uh, not entirely sure myself.

but alas, that concludes my discussion on roboty. i learned a lot about him during this writing process, and while his time in bfb was brief, i still got to get a good glance into his mind.

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bfb, teamwork, & emergence theory

ok so, emergence is when an entity contains behaviours or properties that the parts making up said entity would not have on their own.

essentially:  simple things(rules, interactions, etc) ---> complex thing (systems, patterns, etc)

ants, for example: a single ant can’t do much, but with many, you get an ant colony, which can create complex structures.

another example would be humans. a human, on their own, can do a lot already, but it is only when a collection of humans interact, can things like language, culture, and society, begin to emerge.

emergence is something beautiful, and its everywhere, but what does this have to do with bfb? well, what if i told you that teamwork is a form of emergence?

one way to show this, is by looking at specialisation. in some emergent systems, things do different things. e.g. the human body is emergent, but not all the cells in our body do the same task, for we have bone cells, stem cells, blood cells, etc.

not all emergent systems are like this though. in bfb9, the challenge is about basketball, the teams throw balls into their respective baskets in order to weigh it down and win. the easiest thing to do would be to throw the ball into the basket. all the team members might be doing the same thing, but its still emergence. this only goes so far, though.

although gatys team members are specialising in throwing as a team, they do not personally specialise in throwing as objects, and i think that can have a huge affect on a teams chance of winning

emergence is useless in a team if the people in said team arent good at what they're doing.

despite the fact that bleh won, a team of bad throwers isnt as effective as a team of good throwers (when the challenge is about throwing).

moving on, a trait that emergent systems have, is that they're decentralised

this means that theres nothing in particular thats controlling anything. in terms of bfb, it means there is no team leader. but i wonder: would it be better to have a team with leaders? or none?

well, for one, a good leader would need to be logical

in bfb1, the challenge was to grab any of the baskets and return it to x. iance’s strategy was to reach the basket by.. jumping, which didnt work, and as a result, they were up for elimination

this was because of the flawed logic that match used when leading her team; she didn’t assess the situation further and come to the conclusion that they cant jump half a mile

a good leader also needs to be respected, and give respect back

this was the direct consequence of golfballs actions(bfb2). im sure theres more to it than just disrespecting grassy (like getting blocky and rf to climb the tree when it was pointless), but regardless, abntt was clearly not happy with gb’s behaviour, and felt that replacing her would be the best thing to do

its because of this instance with abntt do i feel as though it’d be more beneficial to not have any team leaders at all. we saw how, with iance, they lost due to matchs illogical commands

and i think its also due to the reasoning she gave. match fed nonsense info to her team, and they didnt question it, nor did they even think about it

if we look at abntt though, they were able to replace their team leader in bfb2. this was done in the absence of golfball. this means that only when the leader was gone, were they finally able to discuss with eachother. it never explicitly shows this, but i imagine an offscreen conversation wouldve occured about who should lead the team, as golfball wasnt there

yes, a good team leader should be respectable, give respect, and be logical. but the same could also be said about the other team members. if they were all like this, they could make decisions collectively, through communication and logic, listening and understanding, and then there wouldnt be a need for a leader.

if an emergent team is a team that can specialise, and is decentralised, then an emergent team is a good team. ultimately, it comes down to communication. by talking, a team will be able to share ideas, make better decisions, and do things greater than the sum of their parts.

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bfb and mechanical minds

in bfb, objects come in many different forms and shapes. today, we will be looking at a specific set of objects: tv, robot flower, remote, and roboty.

what these specific objects have in common is that they're mechanical minds, but it doesnt just stop there.

when i hear the phrase “mechanical minds”, connotations like technology, robotics, and ai, start to come up. the last one in particular interests me. are the mechanical minds some form of advanced artificial intelligence?

This is what golfball had to say about mechanical minds when choosing her team members in bfb1. what shes implying here is that mechanical minds are smarter than non-mechanical objects, but is this true? and if so, how exactly?

well, to answer all these questions, we first need to know what makes a mechanical mind a mechanical mind

1. structure the structure of a mechanical mind relates to machinery, whether this be as an electronic appliance or as robotic materials(e.g. metal, led lights, etc). in some cases, this can be beneficial, as roboty was able to survive being hit by a jawbreaker

2. compute mechanical minds are shown to be able to make computations

theyre able to take input data (”turn purple!”), process them(set screen to purple), and give off an output (display purple). this is a trait that is common in computers. with this ability, they can also make calculations

in bfb6, tv was able to calculate and display the votes of who was to be eliminated in the team beep. what he did here is a task that i think would be very difficult for non-mechanically minded objects (as well as humans) to achieve. the fact that he computed (or at the very least, estimated) the votes to such exact values, plus his history of calculating votes in bfdia, shows that he must have been using an algorithm or some sophisticated neural network that he’s perfected with time.

3. connect to the internet..? remember abntt in bfb7? as they were stuck on the moon, they weren't able to directly compete in the competition, so they did it indirectly, by controlling remote through robot flower.

ethics aside, this shows us that mechanical minds are capable of sending data to other mechanical minds

you can kind of imagine it as an internet connection between networks. below is a visualisation i made of how such a topology would look like:

tennis and basket ball send inputs to robot flower, who converts it to signals that the ship can send across to remote via the place robot flower(from now on, i’ll just refer to it as the internet) went to.

on a side note: perhaps the internet seems to be quite unknown to the mechanical minds? judging by how robot flower seems to be a bit confused upon entering the place.

this however, may not apply to remote. she defended herself by trying to send a bomb over to her hackers, which, quickly took a turn once rf closed the connection. at first this might seem like no big deal, but the fact that shes even able to send a bomb (and in a short amount of time, too) over shows that she has some knowledge/experience of the internet, and more possibly, herself, and how she works.

on one other side note about the internet. in the episode, you can see white star grid-like points moving in constant directions, moving pass a central area. could that be travelling data unrelated to robot flower and remote? and if so, would it mean the bfb universe isn't as quiet as we expect it to be?

4. sentience mechanical minds are, without a doubt, sentient. they can make sense of the world from their unique point of view, and experience the world

from the perspective of a designer or automator, this would be good, as the mechanicals dont have to act on simple if statements, but instead, make their own logical choices(whether by neural networks or whatever). however, with the ability to make decisions and experience things, comes the ability to feel emotions, and these emotions can have an effect on decision making, which can cause mechanical minds to make irrational decisions.

for example, the situations remote and robot flower went through in the screenshot above. i spoke about this last post with remote, where she had a choice of going against her teams morals by killing, or lose the challenge and have her body hacked. robot flower was also in a difficult dilemma, where she had to choose between killing everyone on the moon, or going against gb’s earlier instruction by closing the connection (may i add that its a bit ironic how remotes the one who sends a bomb instead of following her teams passive morals while rf valued the safety of her friends over the challenge).

in both instances, these two minds have demonstrated that they are not only capable of feeling emotions like fear and pressure, but that theyre also able to think for themselves. they can deviate from their original instructions and make a choice based on their own individual experience.

sentience is not a feature that differentiates mechanicals from non mechanicals. they can have this regardless, however, for such a thing to be possible in mechanical minds means that theyre a very very advanced form of machinery. if you hooked these machine minds up to a turing test, they'd pass it with ease

the answer now, to actually answer the question. are mechanical minds smarter?

well, in terms of computation, being able to calculate things faster than anyone else can come in handy.

in terms of internet access, it can be seen as a huge advantage. what abntt did in bfb7 may have failed, but it was really smart and creative. im surprised they havent used this technique more

there isnt much to say about structure, except that it helps make the mechanical minds capable of computation and internet access

in terms of sentience, thats where im not so sure. on one hand, you can make your own logical choices and do what you think is best, but on the other hand, your emotions can make you do irrational things? so i guess it cancels out..

overview but in general, i think there arent that many perks to being mechanical. the closer mechanical minds come to emulating non-mechanic behaviour, the less of a difference there is between the two.

however, despite this seeming non-difference, we still get objects forming dichotomies and opinions about them.

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bfb, self-preservation, and deathpact

in bfb, death is seen as a natural phenomenon. objects die all the time. what interests me about that though, is their attitude toward death.

recovery is the opposite of death. when objects die, they can be resurrected. this is typically done in two ways: recovery centers, and four. although recovery seems to put objects at ease, they fear death more so when there is no source of recovery. in bfb 1, for example, when four mutilates pin:

coiny is clearly shocked and horrified by the idea that he’ll never get to see pin again

because of the fact that recovery exists, objects tend to become more likely to kill, normalising death. for them, there is nothing to fear if they'll come right back into life. yet, despite this, the objects do still have a degree of self-preservation. in fact, there is a team whose origin and beliefs are based on the idea of non-killing; death pact

death pact is a team of pacifists, with their main philosophy/strategy being to prevent death. this doesn't always work though, as seen in bfb4, where they were willing to spend time blocking the forks instead of doing the challenge. this shows that the team cares more about preventing death than winning.

this is proven further in episode 10 (timestamp 5:54), where the team finds out that remote sent abntt a bomb in episode 7.

obviously they wouldn't be very happy with remote doing this, it completely goes against their beliefs. a bit more off-topic, but i really dont think this is remotes fault, she was put in a very tight dilemma. do you kill your hackers while violating your teams morals, or do you endure the lack of bodily control and lose the challenge? 

back to what i was talking about, what confuses me about this is why; why does dpact decide to prevent death when its practically pointless to do so? and more generally, why self-preserve when you can be recovered?

1. pain

objects feel pain. they also feel empathy, and know that pain does not feel nice. because of this, deathpact is able to foresee pain(death) in others, and take appropriate action to prevent that. they can also prevent their own deaths, too. this isn’t limited to just deathpact, however, i do think the team has an enhanced sense of empathy, or atleast, one strong enough to the point where it overrides their will to win the competition, which ties nicely to the next point

2. competition

i feel like competition can have an effect on how objects act towards death.

for the teams that aren’t deathpact, their top priority isn’t to save lives or bring peace, but rather to win, and because of this, they're less likely to be altruistic, and instead act on self-preservation. we get the chance to see the destructive and murderous nature of the objects unleash during challenges.

3. elimination

elimination is an aspect that drives the characters to compete. no one wants to be a loser, they want to win. i guess in a way, elimination is to them what death is to us. they fear elimination more than they do death itself. i think pen sums it up nicely in bfdi8:

“i liked it when there was elimination. it adds anticipation and self-preservation” - pen, bfdi8(4:44)

overview

i hope these points help answer the questions above, but with team deathpact, the last two points do not apply, and that is what separates their team from the rest.

team deathpact doesn’t care about the competition, they dont care about elimination, and they certainly don’t care about winning. when you get rid of the ego and the urge to win, you get deathpact, a group of objects who care about saving lives.

so while its the battle itself for bfdi that causes the need to self-preserve, deathpact need not worry, for they aren’t fighting. but that in itself makes me question: why compete in the first place? im very interested in seeing where deathpact goes with their death prevention plan, and how far they’re willing to focus on saving lives as opposed to winning.