The Quest for Truth........chapters 5 and 6

Read the beginning of the story here

Chapters 3 and 4 here

Chapter 5

As Rigour prepared to shoe the horse he thought of as Verisimilitude (who was in fact Bias) he picked up a piece of paper on the floor seemingly dropped by the scary stranger (who was in fact Confounded). He couldn’t help but read it and was delighted to read of the Quest for Truth and in that moment decided that he was the man for the Champion for King Quantit. As he went to return the paper to the saddle bag he accidently knocked out more papers that fell to the floor of the forge with a thud!

The big title “Data Set” was hard to miss! These were of course the documents stolen from the wizards. The Data set contained all the answers to all the questions ever asked in Probability. Before he could hastily put them back, Confounded entered the forge wondering what was taking so long. Luckily, even though Rigour knew nothing of stolen documents etc, his suspicion was aroused and he managed to hide the Data Set from view. He completed the task in record time, not wanting to spend any more time that absolutely necessary in the company of the stranger and his weird horse and excited to be on his way to the palace to propose himself as Champion (taking the Data Set with him).

Confounded and Bias were soon on their way – unaware that they were minus the Data Set. They too were heading to the palace with a plan to use the Data Set to cheat and find the Truth his way and thus gain the prize.

So, we leave this chapter with Holistic Perspective and his servant Dichotomous Data (who finally decided!), Rigour, Validity and Reliability (and Snowball of course) and Confounded Variable with Bias, all heading from the four corners of Probability towards the palace.

Chapter 6.

All were finally congregated in Chi-square immediately outside the A’Tives palace with a variant of a normally distributed population who had come to watch the contest – and indeed the spectacle of such a Quest.

Amongst the crowd was Data Dredging, a reporter from the Probability Daily Chronicle who was always on the lookout or links and associations without the need for reported facts! An ongoing liaison with Voluptuous Validity (no relation to our own heroine), who despite strong feminist principles and a need to challenge the public and private divisions of life was in fact a bit of a gossip, was a very fruitful source of material for Data’s by-lines.

Suddenly over the noise of the crowd, a fanfare could be heard, followed swiftly by our two Kings Qualit and Quantit. Beside the Kings stood their faithful servant Co-Variant , being the only entity who could vary and change his behaviour to suit each King’s needs without compromising his own personal qualities. In a loud voice, Co-Variant welcomed everyone to the palace on behalf of his masters and, unwinding a large scroll from his pocket he proceeded to announce the Champions and the tasks they were expected to perform.

This went on for some time, and a bit longer, and longer still. The crowd was restless and beginning to disperse when he finally came to the good bit.

Holistic Perspective was to be Champion for King Qualit and Rigour to be Champion for King Quantit (no surprises there then!). Cheers and jeers rang through the square as they were congratulated and the unsuccessful were laughed at. Validity and Reliability took the news with grace as would be expected. However, one person was less than happy! Confounded Variable was fuming, and as his horse, Bias, snorted derisively, he paced up and down deep in thought and hatching a cunning plan (for some reason he had still not checked his saddle bags and was unaware of the missing Data Set).

A hush was finally brought to the crowd as Co-Variant listed the tasks to be completed by each Champion in the Quest for Truth:

1.     To enter and traverse the Paradigm Forest. A place of anomaly and inconsitency that constantly shifted. Legend had it that if you survived the Forest then you emerged with a clear way of understanding and looking at the world around you.

2.     To travel the length of the River of Standard Deviation which turns, winds and often shape changes. It was slightly different to your average river – but nobody really knew why other than the fact that there were a lot of square roots along the way. However there was another twist to this task. The Champions had to travel the river on a Learning Log – very hard!

3.     The final task (if they survived the other two) was to climb a steep and treacherous outcrop known by all as Wittgenstein’s Ladder. Of course “climb” was not technically a true representation of what was involved, but a rather dumbing down of what was expected in order to simplify it for those involved.

We leave our Champions to take in the news of the tasks. At the moment they are a bit pale, but putting on a brave face and starting to plan their next move.

But what of the wizards?

The Quest for Truth - continued........................

 Click here for the beginning of the story

Chapter 3

Yomping through the land at just that same moment was Holistic Perspective (or Hol to his friends) and his trusty servant, Dichotmous Data.  Hol was a decent chap, of noble birth from the next village, Aposteriori where his father was Squire.  Like all his fellow villagers Hol believed that knowledge is gained from the experience, so he knew that it was windy outside right at that moment because he was experiencing it.

A selfless man, Hol put all others before himself (except for  his servant!) and always took into account the actions of all others around him before making a decision. 

Dichotomous was a bit of a village idiot if truth be told and could never make his mind up from one day to the next – was he fat or thin? Hot or cold? A constant trial to many people – but not to Hol who took care to always take this into account when asking Dichotomous to make a decision, which is why it could take a very long time indeed before a decision was made.

One such occasion was of course the advert for the Kings’ Champion. Should they or shouldn’t they apply. Let’s leave them for a moment to consider all their options whilst we focus on the furthest corner of the Kingdom.

The village of Apriori takes our attention now.  At the opposite end of the kingdom, this was a place where  knowledge was valued that was not reliant on the experiential element of gaining it.  If a thing can be seen to be, then you don’t have to experience it to know it for example it is known that dragons are green – you don’t have to experience being a dragon to know this – this was Apriori knowledge. In this village lived a strapping young blacksmith named Rigour. A very skilled blacksmith who was meticulous and scrupulous  in his task and paid close attention to detail. These skills he transferred to his dealings with everyday situations and his counsel was often sought by friends and fellow villagers to settle an argument or to help with big decisions.

One day a dark stranger came to the village, his horse in need of  a new shoe.  As he strutted down the high street, dressed in black, his cape swirling around him – despite the fact there was no breeze to speak of  (unlike in Apostieriori)– all the villagers  scurried out of his way and tried not to draw his attention – he had that effect on everyone he met. He introduced himself to Rigour as Hypothesis , an intuitive man with an enquiring mind and his horse Verisimilitude, a consistent and truthful companion.  He explained that he was a learn-ed man and was in search of new experiences and that he had run into a spot of bother a few miles from the village leaving his horse limping without a shoe. Rigour was happy to oblige and quickly set about stoking the forge in readiness for the new shoe making.

What Rigour and the other villagers didn’t know was that this man was not who he claimed to be. This was in fact Confounded Variable, a dastardly villain who was always an unforeseen and unaccounted for influence and jeopardised all he came into contact with. His horse was Bias with an imbalanced mind and who invariably gave people the creeps. Confounded had actually been trying to outrun three wizards from whom he had stolen some important documents that were of vital importance to the security of the whole kingdom and beyond. One of the wizards had managed to reach him with one of his spells whilst he was in flight which had resulted in the damage to Bias’ foot. However, Confounded still had the documents and time was running out.

Chapter 4

As night drew in, a strange light could be seen glimmering on the horizon very close to the village of Construct. Validity and Reliability with trusty Snowball were sitting on the front porch, discussing the Kings' notice and wodering how they could enter. They were also watching the light display and wondering what in Probability could be causing it. Was it some strange act of nature? Maybe a forest fire? They were far from the truth.

At the foot of the volcano, Abstract, sat three men – who could only be wizards. They wore the pointy hat and everything. And they were arguing – hence the light display as they fired insults and reprimands at each other it fits of pique.

Systematical, the eldest wizard was a serious man, a bit of a navel gazer,  and was questioning why the documents had been stolen, how it could have happened and what was the meaning of it all. Sceptical, who was always reticent to believe anything at face value was questioning whether it had happened at all and whether there would indeed be any consequences whilst  his brother Ethical, who  was a stickler for the rules and a safe guarder of the people  was trying to motivate the other two to do something to protect the kingdom and the people.

On and on they argued into the night. Let’s leave them arguing for  bit longer.

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