Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat

Ante Up

"It's my turn next!"

"It's mine!"

Red and Blanche were literally head-butting, pushing against each other with wings flared as they argued about who'd get to use the bathroom when Marble got out. The argument had been going on for a while - Marble did, after all, need to spend extra time keeping herself damp.

Star sighed, and looked at me. "Can't you do something about those two?"

I shrugged. "I suppose. Ladies?" I called over to them. "If you can't play nicely, I'll turn this train right around."

That at least got them to stop glaring at each other and give me confused looks. Red still looked annoyed, as well, but Blanche abruptly brightened. "I know! Let's let her decide!"

"Oooh, no," I shook my head. "I'm not going to get in the middle of that one." I tilted my head. "But - I am willing to set the rules to decide." I flipped open a handy piece of luggage, pulled out a deck of cards, and tossed it on the work-table. "One-card deal, high card wins, ties get a re-deal."

Brick piped up, "That's fine for right now - but how about we set a roster for next time, to settle the arguments in advance? Maybe set a priority list of who gets to go ahead of who."

Red, "What, and let her go ahead of me every time, or me her? That hardly seems fair - if we're not going to stick to a schedule, then we should rotate around, so everyone gets a chance to go first."

Marble's voice drifted through the door, "That hardly seems fair - what if I really, really need to come back in here?"

"Welp," I welped, "The usually-accepted method for best measuring how strongly somepony wants something compared to another pony... is finding out how much money each of them are willing to pay for it. But since we're a little short on cash, and what bits we do have, we need for other things... I now declare a new currency: points. Each of us gets an equal amount, and they can be spent only to bid for non-essential things, like bathroom slots, or what sort of takeout to get."

Star raised an eyebrow. "If we all get an equal amount, then won't we all just spend them all as fast as we get them, and have the bids tie, and be back where we started?"

I shook my head. "Maybe getting an early bathroom slot is more important to you than picking something for dinner, so you'll spend more on the one than the other. But to make it a real currency - you can also trade it with anyone else here. Maybe you feel like knocking off from being on watch early, so you can give someone some points to cover your shift."

Red, "What'll we use to count 'em? Going to make some kind of point-bits?"

I shrugged. "Nah, we don't need to. We can just keep track in our heads, or if we have to, just write down who's got how many."

"So if we can trade 'em... can we bet 'em?"

I pushed the card-deck so it slid across the table toward her. "Knock yourself out. But anyone who ever gets caught cheating - loses all their points. And all my trust in them."

"How many do we get?"

"Hm... well, to make sure there's enough to divvy up for different things and for betting, how about a thousand a day?"

Red picked up the deck, slid the cards out of their box, and started shuffling. "So, who wants in? What's your favorite game?"

The rest of the bunch drifted over to the table and took some seats. We murmured a bit, talking about who knew what, who hated what, and so on, and in a few minutes, found just one game we all knew and weren't averse to: poker. When that was decided, even Marble pulled herself out of the washroom to join us.

I carefully didn't mention that everyone seemed more interested in the game than in actually getting into the washroom - almost anything was better than the fighting that was going on a moment ago.

We tried a few rounds of dealer's choice, trying out different variations - from basic five-card draw, to ones with face cards, ones with community cards, lowball games, wild-cards, games with extra hands that counted, ones where you could bid for cards, and so on. For sheer practicality, we ended up with something like 'bits' after all - small scraps of paper with numbers written on them, to use for chips.

Marble and Star liked variants that let them keeping their cards hidden, Red and Blanche liked community cards, Brick liked seeing everyone's face-up cards, I discovered I had the most fun with the variants where there was more than one way to win, and Amethyst seemed willing to go along with whatever.

"You know," I said, "about fifty years ago, at a certain university, some of the ponies I admire had a variant they liked, called Oxford Stud. Two cards down, one card up, and bet, starting with the lowest hand showing; two common cards, and bet; one up card to everypony, and bet; one common card, and bet; and finally everypony declares high or low. The highest high hand and the lowest low hand split the pot."

We gave it a try.

It was completely insane.

It was also a blast.

For the next forty hours or so, probably thirty of them had at least four of us at the table. None of us were particularly good at Oxford - but we each had our advantages, which tended to balance out. I was horrible at poker psychology and reading plays, but the best at figuring the raw probabilites. Amethyst had a completely unreadable poker face. Marble was good at long-term money management. Star was good at reading bluffs and tells. And so on.

---

"Hey, boss."

"Yeah, Blanche?"

"I see you're running a bit low. I'll bankroll you an extra hundred - and all I want for it is a kiss."

"... No thanks."

---

"What do you mean, you don't believe in souls? Call." Star looked at me as if I were insane.

"Raise one. Well, for one, I use 'believe' and 'disbelieve' a bit differently from most ponies, and try not to use those words at all - but sometimes I have to, simply to try to be clear and not go down the road of using pedantic over-explanations. But since you ask - I've seen some evidence that supports the idea that souls exist. I've seen some evidence that supports the idea that they don't. At the moment, the latter outweighs the former."

"Call," Brick called.

As the betting continued around, I continued chatting with Star, "One of the troubles with this particular discussion, is one that happens in a lot of discussions - two ponies use the same word, but mean different things by it, and so get into an argument about what the word means, instead of about something useful, like what they predict will happen."

"Everypony knows what a soul is!", she objected.

"Alright - then let's try playing 'taboo word'. Neither of us uses the word 'soul' - or any of the obvious synonyms. We have to describe whatever it is we're talking about in other terms, instead."

She frowned. "Huh?"

"... yeah, it's late, and I'm not doing that great with descriptions. Okay - as an example. There's an old riddle: 'if a tree falls in a forest, does it make any sound?'. Some people say yes, some people say no. Which do you think is right?"

"Well... yeah, I guess so."

"Fine - I'll argue the other side. But we can't use the word 'sound' or 'noise' or 'crash' or that. So with that limit, why do you think what you think?"

"Because, um, I've seen a tree fall before, and heard-"

"Ahem."

"And... my mind registered the... audible?"

"Nope."

"How am I supposed to say anything about 'sound' if I can't say anything about it?"

"That depends - what is a sound?"

"It's been years since I saw my last tutor. It's, um, when the air... shakes?"

"I'd have used 'vibrates', but that's close enough."

"Okay! So when I see a tree fall, it makes the air shake - or vibrate, or whatever - and if a tree falls where I can't see it, it should do the same, right?"

I nodded pleasantly. "That's fine. My counter-argument is that when a tree falls and vibrates the air, if there is a pony nearby, that vibration will go into their ear, and do complicated things so that that pony has a subjective experience, which depends on the frequencies of that vibration. If nopony is there, then there is no subjective experience."

She looked at me for a few moments. "So... where's the argument?"

I smiled. "That's the beauty of it. There isn't one - when we know what it is we're talking about. So let's get back to souls."

"Fine. What was that word you used? Subjective? If nopony has a soul, then how can we have any subjective experiences at all?"

"So - if I was able to show you a way for something to have subjective experiences, without involving anything like what you might call a 'soul', then would you be willing to accept that maybe they don't exist."

"Um... I don't know. Maybe? Can you show that?"

"Not right now - we're kind of busy. But what I was thinking when you asked me about souls, was this: I have examined the reports of a large number of people who have claimed some ability to communicate with someone who died. Not a single such case provided any evidence that the claimer could learn any knowledge that the dead person knew and they didn't. Some reports were so vague that there simply wasn't enough information to say what really happened. Some involved self-deception, of people who thought they could do what they said, but when push came to shove, couldn't even say, for example, what the dead person's favorite color was. An unhappily large number involved outright fraud. Given all this data, then my conclusion is that any future reports I encounter will be of the same sort; and thus, that people who have died cannot communicate information to the living; the most likely reason being that when somepony dies, their mind simply ceases to exist, like a candle-flame blown out."

"But - that's awful! How can you live like that?"

"Well, for one, it's generally accepted that I'm quite insane. More seriously - just because something is awful, doesn't mean it's not true. And knowing about awful things in advance lets you prepare for them... and to try to improve them."

---

My jaw cracked as I yawned. "Time for me to turn in, I guess. Three hundred points for the six-am bathroom slot?"

"Three fifty!"

"Four hundred!"

"Two fifty for five-forty-five!"

"Hundred. For. Hot. Tea. When. Wake."

"A hundred to anyone who'll serve me breakfast in bed. Well, in couch."

"A hundred to Missy if she sleeps in the bathroom with the door closed - she snores."

"Hey, I need to sleep there, to stay wet! One-fifty for the bathroom overnight!"

"I'll chip in a hundred to stick Missy in there. No offense, boss, but - I could hear you from all the way across the Alicorn."

"I think I'd be kind of uncomfortable trying to sleep in there - if you can find a way to pad it, I won't care, otherwise I'll bid for Marble to get it."

"Everypony who wants to pool up our points to put Missy on the far side of that door, say 'Aye'."

"Aye!" "Nay!"

"Okay, so I can't out-bid all of you - so if I'm stuck in the dry room with the rest of you, and can't get my blanket re-soaked, how about I pay some points to get some water ladled over me every hour or so?"

And so it went...

Comments

[strangephantasm]

Missy's motivation for immortality? She should have just asked Jack or Athena. If an afterlife exists, souls exist.

[Forevermore]

Ah, typical roommate problems. Knew something like this would occur sooner or later, but still funny.

[Doctor Whooves]

1091464
Depends what you mean by 'Afterlife'.

[Keairan]

1091464 Or Marty. How else do you explain him?

[DataPacRat]

1093605
So far, Missy merely has Marty's word about most of his more exotic abilities. And while anecdotal evidence is evidence, it's the weakest sort possible, easily outweighed by just about any other evidence - especially scientific studies with strong p-values. In other words, Missy simply doesn't think Marty is being entirely accurate about the full nature of his experiences (though that doesn't necessarily imply any deliberate falsehoods).

[RealityDowngrade]

Ah man, this just bugs me too much not to say anything
*Inhales like Ace Ventura*
Regardless of a subjective experience of an observer who is not around, sound itself is simply the vibration of an oscillating wave through a medium of solid, liquid, or gas, existing whether or not someone is there.
A blind woman (and for the sake of argument we'll say she in fact has no eyes, thus living in complete absence of light), can't see the light, therefor by the argument that Missy propagated, this woman may boldly state that light does not exist in any way shape or form and be right. But she is not, and so is Missy.
I have too much respect for this work to let Missy slip by, falling on some "I think therefore I am" mentality when such thoughts run counter to her being able to prove things logically without saying something. I can accept her not wanting to believe things or disagree with someone and leave it at that, but to twist words around and call it logic, despite all evidence to the contrary just rankles me.
3.bp.blogspot.com/-vUQnvqx6fHg/T2oxRThdvKI/AAAAAAAAeBA/HacwB6__8y4/s1600/forrest_gump_all_i_have_to_say.png

Aside from that, again, most entertaining, and I personally like your recap chapter idea, though if you want it to have as great an impact as you might like, I might, possibly suggest, if it's not too much trouble, to edit the title and possilby just add "(up until now)" or something like that so there's less chance of people getting confused, I know that I personally flashed by it. At you leisure of course, and you need not take any consideration from one so humble as I.

[DataPacRat]

1100901
Regardless of a subjective experience of an observer who is not around, sound itself is simply the vibration of an oscillating wave through a medium of solid, liquid, or gas, existing whether or not someone is there.
If that's how you define 'sound', then you're quite right. However - not everyone uses that word with that definition. People who use other definitions aren't saying that the universe is itself subjective, they're just using the word 'sound' to refer to the qualia, the subjective experience of the objective event.

Put another way, I was trying to get across the ideas presented in this article, but seem not to have managed it quite as well as I hoped.

[scranity]

Oh god.
If the next chapter has lots of point exchanging, which means math, then I am going to be very confused..