Grand Unified Theory Of Wuxia Fiction

[IcyFox]

Response to Athena's comments:

Thank you IcyFox for inviting to read your essay. It was very good and informative and opened up a lot of new perspectives. All in all it was very insightful. My compliments.

Thanks for the compliments.

However, I do have a few reservations especially on the formula to calculate the outcome of two experts. Some of my points have already been addressed by Han Solo and others.
It is true that you have taken a number of variables into account, but those variables, in my opinion, are not totally decisive.

The variables are probably satisfactory for a start. Eventually they will be improved to give better estimates (hopefully).

For instance having reached a particular level of attainment does not necessarily mean that one could defeat people with a "lower" martial arts insight.
Fan Yao, Linghu Chong*, reverend Chongxu had a higher insight in the art of the sword. However, when or if faced when the following people Fang Dongbai, Ren Woxing it would be unlikely that they would win.

Duan Zhengchun is able to "glue" his stances together, like the way Feng Qingyang taught Linghu Chong when Linghu was fighting Tian Baguang. However, it would be most unlikely that Duan Zhengchun could actually defeat someone like Zuo Lengchan.

Yes, it's entirely possible for a 'weaker' fighter to defeat a 'stronger' fighter, which is accounted for in the stronger fighter's P(Lose) ~ the probability of a 'stronger' fighter losing to the 'weaker' one. When comparing two exponents, if P(Win) < P(Lose), then it simply implies that the first exponent is 'weaker' than the other.

Another example if I remember correctly Xiao Feng had a higher percentage if he were to fight Tonglao, that was a bit surprising. Her martial arts equal and sister Li Qiushui throws long distance attacks of 18 metres. Xiao Feng can only manage 10 metres. I am not saying that I am 100% sure that Tonglao and Li Qiushui are superior to Xiao Feng, but that particular factor was decisive to me why I rank Tonglao and her equals higher than Xiao Feng and his equals.

I would say range is an extremely important factor but it usually applies only to modern warfare, where inter-continental ballistic missiles (range > 5,500km) come into play.

Edit : You can get an irrational sense of humour in the army. LOL.

All this calculating reminds me of (what I said before to you) the lost Taishan sword technique [袋宗如何]. It was said that this technique needed the user to calculate almost anything of his adversary (martial arts school, height, weapon, how long was the weapon, etc. etc.) and then attack. But this technique seemed rather "off" because how could you obtain all that information of your opponent.
The same goes for your formula, the descriptions in the novels are sketchy at best. Most of us (actually talking about myself now) muddle my way through when discussing levels, making comparisons etc., the points, the comparisons I bring up are highly speculative. I could be miles of and probably I am. I have read Jin Yong novels quite accurately in fact very accurately, but even I cannot say:"my assessments are precise and correct."

There is a difference between the two, however. For the Taishan sword technique, presuming they could actually obtain all the required information (for argument's sake), the mathematical complexity of their project is probably too difficult for them to handle.

The biggest flaw in their technique is their lack of knowledge in Newtonian mechanics, which is a requisite to calculate the force, acceleration, centre of gravity, speed, circular motion, etc., without which they would be unable to derive elementary results like how much force the opponent will exert and how much force is necessary for them to deflect or evade the force. Yes, they would roughly know how much force they need, but they wouldn't be able to calculate it, just like how experimental physicists can measure the mass of a proton while theoretical physicists can't calculate it.

Now assuming they could hire Newton to teach them mechanics and they got over the first obstacle, they would face another obstacle. They could not be entirely certain that after executing a certain technique the opponent would follow up with another specific technique, so they would have to calculate probability distributions to decide which technique the opponent would most probably execute as a follow-up move. If they wanted to play it safe, they would have to calculate a large number of combinations (like Palm 13 following Palm 3 or Palm 18 following Palm 7) which would hit infinity if they were fighting an opponent who has mastered the Ideal Formless Style.

Assuming they managed to learn statistics and some advanced mathematical methods and got over the second obstacle, they would face yet another obstacle. How on Earth could they calculate all these stuff with a standard Chinese abacus? They would have so many parameters that even a supercomputer might need weeks generate the results. Even with powerful supercomputers, physicists can hardly derive a mathematical model using the General Relativity equation to show anything more complicated than a completely uniform sphere interacting with space-time.

So I think they hadn't the "foggiest idea" what they were getting themselves into when they initiated their project.

The equation I came up with, however, is extremely straightforward. The steps are pretty simple too. Read the novel, find the relevent evidence and estimate the levels based on the guidelines provided in the treatise. The equation should work even for vague evidence; just that it wouldn't be as accurate. The system (treatise, guidelines, equation and all) would only produce ridiculous results if the evidence is inconsistent, like the Linghu Chong Paradox. (Anyone doesn't know what this is about?)

By asking the opinions of the public (other forum members) is also not a good method. Look at the survivor games, A Qing was voted out quite early in the game along with Tianshan Tonglao and in the end Ren Yingying won. Hello?!? A Qing is a girl who defeated thousands and thousands of soldiers with a bamboo stick! She is a goddess. A thousand of Ren Yingyings are no match for A Qing.
Giving numbers to the particular variables is just guesswork, so in the end nothing has changed. We are still guessing away, but using mathematics now. Which more or less takes away the joy in debating, discussing Jinyonglogy martial arts comparisons.

I'm also convinced that using public opinion isn't such a good idea. Some other members have expressed their reservations on this too. Ideally the levels will be decided based on evidence found in the book alone, but of course there would be times when the evidence is insufficient or inconsistent, so that's where the debates (and the joy of debating) come in (and don't forget the survivor games too).

Again, I think you've done a wonderful job. But the formula, in my opinion, needs to be re-evaluated.

Thanks again. More on the equation later.

[IcyFox]

Reply to Wu Xing's comments:

OK, my opinion is that what IcyFox is doing right now is interesting and his formula could be fun to see what happen. Although it seems to be a bit more "systematic" way to "decide" who is better than who, this calculation might not be that meaningful as you want it to be.

Basically, we are all biased since we don't have enough information. In detection/estimation theory (pretty complex mathematics), even though we try our best to make the best decision based on a well-established mathematical criteria, once we have "noise" in our environment/system, we always have an error in our decision (more noise = more error). Nevertheless, we may have a "theoretical bound" of the error (for a particular level of noise) using the best possible detection/estimation method (which might not be feasible to implement, btw).

In other words, even with the best algorithm of the considered criteria, it could be useless or very inaccurated if the noise is reasonably large. And, I'm talking about a quite-resonable ideal situation which the system model can be set up more-or-less accurately (mismatch in the modeling could cause the accuracy problem depending on how robust the model is).

Although re-evaluation on the formula may be good but I doubt that it is gonna work well. This is because we all have different biases in our idea. But, if we all have the same bias, then our calcution could be totally wrong, right?

You probably imagine that I'm some sort of mathematics professor like John von Neumann. Well, I'm not.

Anyway I'll think about what you said. 'Noise' should be useful to produce realistic results if a parameter cannot be determined with certainty. But I'm not confident I can do anything like that anytime soon so it'll probably be a while before you see the paper entitled "Noise and Wuxia Fiction".

[IcyFox]

Notice:

I'm temporarily suspending all calculations derived using the equation until further notice.

Some of the members have pointed out several critical flaws in the equation and I'm now trying to decide what to do with it. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Anyway if anyone wishes to continue using the program to try obtaining results for fun then please feel free to carry on. Thanks.


Edit : Just a footnote - debugging the equation is going to be much slower than debugging the theories, so please be patient.

[IcyFox]

Reading this thread has made me feel like a trekkie...Still, I applaud the ambition and scope of this grand work of systematic analysis on a highly irregular system.

Sometimes you need crazy people to do some crazy stuff to make things interesting.

Shouldn't we make this informative thread sticky? And wait for IcyFox to come back ffom his military duty before we discuss these theories again?

Sticky? You can try telling Ken (the Mod).

I think my presence here is not really required to discuss the theories because this is a Wuxia fiction project, not an IcyFox project.

And I'm glad to see you too.

[IcyFox]

There will be no bug fixes for the equation this week as I have to report back to camp to do guard duty over the weekend, unfortunately.

[Extremer88]

There will be no bug fixes for the equation this week as I have to report back to camp to do guard duty over the weekend, unfortunately.

Btw, which camp you're at?

[IcyFox]

Btw, which camp you're at?

Pulau Tekong BMTC 2.

[IcyFox]

Finally fixed the equation at last. Phew.

Excerpt from the new equation:


The equation still needs some tweaking but most of the bugs have been cleared. The calculation program can be downloaded from the first page of this thread (where the equation is) or HERE.

The theory is now ready for use. But I won't be illustrating how the theory should be used for now - I still got some other stuff to do like help translate LoCH, help a friend write some article for his web site and take part in the Wuxia fan-fic game.

Cheers!

[yittz]

Wow, you still have time for this.

I tried 10, 10, 12, 7 (T-I-S-P respectively) vs 10, 9, 12 7
Then 10, 10, 12, 7 (T-I-S-P respectively) vs 9, 9, 12 7

The probabilities didn't fit (A have higher chance of losing in the second trial). May need to fix this.

[IcyFox]

Wow, you still have time for this.

I tried 10, 10, 12, 7 (T-I-S-P respectively) vs 10, 9, 12 7
Then 10, 10, 12, 7 (T-I-S-P respectively) vs 9, 9, 12 7

The probabilities didn't fit (A have higher chance of losing in the second trial). May need to fix this.

I really must take my hat off to you. It's amazing you could find a bug in such a short time.

Anyway I'll check through the equation again. I also found a bug at the [2,1,1,1] range.
Hopefully I can fix it by timorrow.

[IcyFox]

UPDATE

I have fixed the bug already. The program should work fine now. If there are any more bugs please do not hesitate to contact me. Thanks.

[Spiritanto]

I never quite understand how you derived the equation.

Finally fixed the equation at last. Phew.

Excerpt from the new equation:


The equation still needs some tweaking but most of the bugs have been cleared. The calculation program can be downloaded from the first page of this thread (where the equation is) or HERE.

The theory is now ready for use. But I won't be illustrating how the theory should be used for now - I still got some other stuff to do like help translate LoCH, help a friend write some article for his web site and take part in the Wuxia fan-fic game.

Cheers!

[IcyFox]

I never quite understand how you derived the equation.

Partially through experimentation and partially through reasoning. The equation is more of 'created' than 'derived'. This method is more commonly used in physics than in mathematics.

[Extremer88]

Partially through experimentation and partially through reasoning. The equation is more of 'created' than 'derived'. This method is more commonly used in physics than in mathematics.

Haha, IcyFox is back from camp. Hi, boss.

[Spiritanto]

Partially through experimentation and partially through reasoning. The equation is more of 'created' than 'derived'. This method is more commonly used in physics than in mathematics.

Thanks for the answer.

I haven't sifted through the previous messages of this threads.

Could I ask why P(A wins) + P(B wins) + P(draw) != 1 ?

[IcyFox]

Could I ask why P(A wins) + P(B wins) + P(draw) != 1 ?

It's supposed to be equal to 1. What values did you use? I'll help you check if it's a bug.

[IcyFox]

Added an essay to the appendix. Will be releasing a sequel to this theory soon.

[Whsie]

I haven't looked at your theory for about a week. However, correct me if I'm wrong, but did you include endurance/age in your formula? Because 2 people on the same level of martial art, but one is in his prime (30s) compared to someone in his 60s, who would win? Obviously the one in his prime.

[IcyFox]

An extremely important question:

I haven't looked at your theory for about a week. However, correct me if I'm wrong, but did you include endurance/age in your formula? Because 2 people on the same level of martial art, but one is in his prime (30s) compared to someone in his 60s, who would win? Obviously the one in his prime.

Nope. I can say obviously the older man will win because he has more experience. Sometimes the obvious shouldn't be assumed. Being obvious doesn't necessarily mean it's right.


For 2 people with the same martial arts levels, the outcome would most probably be a draw, regardless of age. Age, experience, etc. would all have to be factored in when the skill levels are determined prior to the calculations.

If his age causes him to be at a disadvantage, then his maximum levels will have to be adjusted downwards accordingly to maintain the accuracy of the calculations.

His maximum levels at present (with age included) would then be lower than his younger opponent, giving his opponent a higher chance of beating him.

If after the consessions (due to age, experience etc.) the respective maximum levels are equal, then it would mean that at their best at the current state, the outcome is likely to be a draw.

The most important thing to note when determining the levels is that the levels must be representative of the exponents at their best at a specific frame of reference.

And that can imply that the older man was previously better but has now declined, bringing them to the same plane.



Edit :
To Whsie : Unfortunately I was unable to respond to your question before I headed back to camp last week. I was attending a talk by Professor C N Yang, previously of the Institute of Advanced Studies.

[IcyFox]

Added Appendix C and E. Hope to complete Appendix A by next week so that I can start working on the sequel.