Mahouka Character Discussion: Shiba Tatsuya (bunko spoilers)

[Vexacion]

I think the question of perpetually using regrowth to put the bodies composition back to what is was ~24 hours ago to forever remain young is an interesting one. We know that Regrowth can't save the dead because it only reconstructs the information body and can't change/touch any related phenomena such as electrical emission in the brain, the phenomena that 'the heart is beating', ect... Scientifically the phrase 'turn back the clock of life' doesn't really fly with me and the books setting. It's basically saying that 'life' is something supernaturally not connected to any physical processes or physical state. I almost want to say that the Author wrote himself into a corner with this ability and had to say something to explain away these sort of 'word/story breaking' potentials

So I'm just going to table that and humor myself by trying to objectively break down what would happen if it was attempted...

Now the question is whether in the novels Tatsuya has been selectively repairing the damaged areas with regrowth or fully copying the entire person's information body. I can't remember of it was specifically stated . I'll just assume the damaged areas. If so that would explain why people retain their memories since there wasn't any need to restore the previous state of the persons mind. With that assumption then the question would be what happens if regrowth is attempted on the mind... Would the residual electricity 'jump start' the rebuilt neurons which would be devoid of any 'phenomena'? If a gradual replacement is done across the brain to allow the electrical & chemical functionality to propagate across the restored sections would that work?

If he's been doing a full rewrite then it's hard to say because that brings up the question of just where/how are memories stored? However that could leave the Author an 'out' in that he could use the 'Steins gate' reasoning that the mind becomes incompatible if suddenly inserted into a body too different so the author could put an upper limit on the how much this could be done. It could also be explained to be 'phenomena' I guess...

I would say that if it would be possible to do a full restore perpetually but there would be a loss of all information/memory/physical development of the period between regrowth and the point the copy was taken from. So the person would only have memories up to the point the regrowths started and never be able to develop physically beyond that point.

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Well that was fun

[crisisavatar]

Regarding memory loss upon further thought Tatsuya could just skip the brain, he does have the ability to target and we can see it in action when he restored the leg of that one dude. Using that method he can choose actual immortality or fairly extended lifespan by choosing to keep important days.

[Sashiko]

I took a look at Chapter 12 which is where Miyuki made these comments:

Spoiler! :

1. Changes in the Eidos can be rewound up to 24 hours in the past, copying and rewriting the Eidos from before any damages or harm from external sources were incurred, then using Magic Sequences to rewrite the current Eidos. The rewritten target will adhere to the updated information and restore itself to before any harm was suffered."

2."The effects of magic are not eternal because the restorative powers of Eidos are at work. The restorative power of the Eidos tries to revert itself to before any external alterations occurred. However, the rewritten Eidos from 'Regrowth' is only the target's own information from before. If you're being rewritten by your own Eidos, there is no need to revert to the time of injury and will remain in this world in a state where the injury never happened. All of this becomes as if nothing had ever happened."

Now, If I understand this correctly, the body remains the same age or would only temporarily be at a younger age since being younger would be a change in the Eidos.

Essentially, what Tatsuya is doing is overwriting the information regarding the injury with the pre-injured state so after Tatsuya uses Regrowth the physical state of the person or thing is exactly what it would be if the injury never happened so it is unlikely that age is affected any more than memory is affected.

Although it might be possible for Tatsuya to erase or restore memories but to do so he would probably have to specifically target memories which he might not be able to do.

Sashiko

[larethian]

disclaimer: I forgot most of my stuff I learned while schooling, so some of them might be inprecise. While I'm still reading non-fiction books that deal with such stuff from time to time, I'm not cross-referencing sources here and just basing on my memory. Feel free to correct me if I make a mistake *tehe*

It's best to suspend all belief on what's possible not possible, and not to go into discussion about memory and accept the possible plot holes.

Because to date, scientists aren't completely sure how memory is stored even though there many plausible theories based on certain experimental evidence. But even with that, they cannot be 100% sure yet. Memory is currently believed to be stored in the form of associations (in the form of synapses) between neurons. They are not stored in neurons themselves and and quite possibly independent of neuron count and specific neurons. There was a case where a person has most of his skull filled with fluids with only a thin layer of neurons, but he was able to perform cognitive and memory functions like a normal person.

If anyone has background in neural networks (model of neurons in computer science), the mathematical function and value of weights between a neuron pair makes no sense to a human being. Collectively employed, they do work (by training the neural network using large amounts of data as its input) in learning and recognition with the proper functions/algorithms. NN is one out of many AI techniques and are normally employed in AI that requires learning or recognition functions. Of course, it's a little bit off-tangent here, but my point is that NN models can be thought to be closely resembling to how brains work in cognition, memory, learning. As memories are associative in nature, they can be partially regenerated if enough associations remain in other parts of the brain after brain damage/trauma (in theory again through certain case studies). It is thus quite unbelievable to me that specific memories can be erased independently without affecting other memories due to this associative nature (which is not 1-to-1 but n-to-n order). If say, a fictional character perform a memory erase on a target, in truth, it will almost 100% affect other memories that have certain similar or related associations. Anyway, one of the problems I have with SAO is because Kawahara treats human memories in the same way as how data is stored in a computer, which is simply not true and total BS. Not that I have anything against Kawahara (I actually think he's a pretty nice guy).

But my point is I shall not think too much about it

[Guest2]

[quote=TheLaG][quote=Guest2]It seems it is that simple. Its what happened to his mother. She got lots of rest while being hospitalized and still remained very weak despite having no problems with her body, and then died. But you are right that we do not know his limits. He could last 50 years longer or just 1. But it is a certainty he would be weaker since powerful magic burdens one's lifeforce and soul like in his mother's case.[/quote]

You are incorrect, largely his mother was affected already after she altered her sisters memories. Next big overuse was operation on Tatsuya, so she clearly overused her magic. But Tatsuya doesn't look like he is having problems with magic, there are few exceptions on when he restores people, but it's not burden on magic abilities, much more on mind itself. So until he will use a lot of magic at the same time, he is not in danger, and considering his type of magic, he really need A LOT to break him :wink:[/quote]Umm Miyuki states in V8 magic is a function of the mind and soul so it must be a burden. And I never said Tatsuya is currently having problems. I said using his most powerful magic everyday on his entire body would be extremely harmful and would cause a similar fate to what happened to his mother. Not sure where your the info about his mother came from, but its different to what I read. She continually used her most powerful magic after the kidnapping incident and had to be hospitalised several times because of that overuse.

[quote=crisisavatar]His mother was fine after doing her sister and doing him couldn't have been that much tougher. What happened to her was that she basically burned herself out trying to learn how to undo what she did to Maya.
.........
Also no idea where you are all getting this idea that powerful magic = toxic to the user, Miyuki is the biggest walking powerful magic showcase and that's just training for her, Mr. Brother would have said something by now if there was a problem, trust me.
Correct formulas:
You use too much magic = you kick the bucket
High complexity = more taxing = arrive at limit quicker
Real question is how Tatsuya's special modifications help against this limit. Chick who died helping him ( lousy limit ) I'm sure had some modifications but I don't think is anywhere near as much as him, they went all out on him. There is also the fact that Tatsuya has a world class bloodline, that is a big factor.[/quote]

[quote]In the aftermath of this incident, Miya broke her body from overusing her mind manipulation magic before she turned twenty like a penance. She was repeatedly in and out of the hospital and lived her life under medical care for ten years.[/quote]

[quote]The Magic Operation Area is not a physical area in the cerebrum, but rather is a direct mental function. Adding an artificial Magic Operation Area would therefore entail altering the mental structure. That would be impossible without Okaa-sama’s magic, ‘Mental Structure Interference’……[/quote]

And a side note is that this novel seems to follow the concept that the mind is an integral part of the human spirit/the soul. I believe a more direct translation of Miya and Miyuki's magic is mind, soul and spirit manipulation magic. Mental is close but doesn't completely convey the idea the actual Japanese word used represents.

So there is a possibility of memories being separate to the brain and more a part of a person's spirit.

[Rava]

Spirit magic is distinctly NOT Mind magic.

Spirits in the storyline are distinctly defined as Mikihiko's Pushion congregations.

The only relation Spirit Magic has with Mind Magic is that they are both External Systematic Magic.

[Guest2]

[quote="Rava"]Spirit magic is distinctly NOT Mind magic.

Spirits in the storyline are distinctly defined as Mikihiko's Pushion congregations.

The only relation Spirit Magic has with Mind Magic is that they are both External Systematic Magic.[/quote]
That is something you will have take up with the author not me. I am just quoting what is in the novel.
Bt V8c14
[quote]...The only magic I can use then, is that.
The mental interference magic I inherited from Okaa-sama.
It’s different from Okaa-sama’s magic, which interferes with mental structure, but like Okaa-sama’s magic, it acts upon the target’s spirit.
It’s a magic which freezes their soul.[/quote]

[Sashiko]

I know this is a little off-Topic but I'm having a little translator's block.

I need masculine but non-profane interjections for Tatsuya to use in conversations. My thesaurus is giving me ones like "gee Whiz" and "oh dear" which don't really suit Tatsuya.

The words being replace are Masaka! and Mattaku! I probably can get by with Unbelievable if he's using them in surprise but that will not work for all situations. (i.e. frustration)

BTW, he has to be able to use them in conversations with Miyuki and Mayumi so they have to be rated G.

Sashiko

[larethian]

can you transcribe the whole line?

[denormative]

The words being replace are Masaka! and Mattaku! I probably can get by with Unbelievable if he's using them in surprise but that will not work for all situations. (i.e. frustration)

Frustration/annoyance = "Damn"

Surprise variant would probably just be "What!?" (yeah, it does overload with 'nani' somewhat...), or maybe "You're kidding me?"/"You've got to be kidding me!?" for a more verbose variant.

But yeah, it's pretty context dependant. Well at least that's probably what I'd be using instead of those words anyway. Personally I try to be more colourful then crass when speaking. Unless I'm really annoyed.

[Sashiko]

Unfortunately, its multiple lines.

For example:

"iie, mattaku'"- denying a teasing accusation

and I think there was a case of mattaku being used for exasperation.

Naturally, I' m fairly comfortable writing the dialogue of my fellow females, but sometimes getting the guys to sound right is tough.

Sashiko

[Sashiko]

I can't use the D-word, Tatsuya would never use it in the presence of Miyuki, Mayumi, Shizuku, Honoka, Mizuki, Azusa, Suzune or Fujibayashi. And it's doubtful that he would use it in front of Erika, Kanon or Mari as well.

Sashiko

[larethian]

Well, you can always give me the page numbers, so that I can check the context.

For "iie, mattaku'", you can translate it as "Jeez no."

I don't know what context is it for masaka, which can be translated in a variety of ways.

[Rava]

Spirit magic is distinctly NOT Mind magic.

Spirits in the storyline are distinctly defined as Mikihiko's Pushion congregations.

The only relation Spirit Magic has with Mind Magic is that they are both External Systematic Magic.

That is something you will have take up with the author not me. I am just quoting what is in the novel.
Bt V8c14

...The only magic I can use then, is that.
The mental interference magic I inherited from Okaa-sama.
It’s different from Okaa-sama’s magic, which interferes with mental structure, but like Okaa-sama’s magic, it acts upon the target’s spirit.
It’s a magic which freezes their soul.

No, you are building the foundation of your belief on a translation issue. It's like saying "a spirit" has the same meaning as "the spirit of the law." But since I doubt that's going to convince you, I located and checked the raw for the chapter, as the only way your argument has merit is if the word choice that was translated for "spirit" here matches the word choice used for "Spirit Magic" back in Volume 3, Chapter 1. So you would need to look at the raw and see if it says 精霊 (seirei) there, which can be defined as (spirit; soul; ghost). Which it doesn't. It uses 精神 (seishin), which can be defined as (mind; soul; heart; spirit; intention). They have overlap in some English words simply because the English word has multiple definitions. Their meanings are clearly NOT supposed to be one and the same.

That being said, since I had to take the time to go find a raw and compare and I can confirm that the word use is definitely not identical, it's time to go update "spirit" to actually say... mind (given the context) to cut down on this kind of misinterpretation.

[Guest2]

No, you are building the foundation of your belief on a translation issue. It's like saying "a spirit" has the same meaning as "the spirit of the law." But since I doubt that's going to convince you, I located and checked the raw for the chapter, as the only way your argument has merit is if the word choice that was translated for "spirit" here matches the word choice used for "Spirit Magic" back in Volume 3, Chapter 1. So you would need to look at the raw and see if it says 精霊 (seirei) there, which can be defined as (spirit; soul; ghost). Which it doesn't. It uses 精神 (seishin), which can be defined as (mind; soul; heart; spirit; intention). They have overlap in some English words simply because the English word has multiple definitions. Their meanings are clearly NOT supposed to be one and the same.

That being said, since I had to take the time to go find a raw and compare and I can confirm that the word use is definitely not identical, it's time to go update "spirit" to actually say... mind (given the context) to cut down on this kind of misinterpretation.

I am not saying Mikihiko's magic is exactly the same as Miyuki's and Miya's. Mikihiko's magic is spirit(fairy-like) and Miya's and Miyuki's magic is mind/spirit(human)/soul interference which I explained about in an earlier post. You even proved my point and found the definition being the soul. Mental is a close description but it doesn't convey what the 精神 in 精神干渉魔法(Miya and Miyuki's mind/spirit/soul inteference magic) conceptualises. It relates to one's mental body, the human oul or spiritual body. It also ties into things Miyuki does in the vamp arc where she actually senses Mikihiko's magic because of her affinity for it.

So please do not make any corrections without checking it over with a Japanese tl. This is the reason for my comment about memory being linked to one's spirit it this novel.