(Intelli Gaming: Article) Tzeentch is a god, which together with his brothers and enemies Khorne, Nurgle and Slaanesh, form the quartet of Chaos gods of the imaginary world of Warhammer. All of those names, their invention and their trademarks belong to Games Workshop. However, the concepts and ideas behind those Gods are nothing new. For Khorne, it can be summed up as the concept of war. For Nurgle it is death, decay and disease. Slaanesh is at work twisting the dark hearts of man and represents corruption, moral perversion and debauchery.
With that, we are left with just one last Chaos God Demon to look at: Tzeentch. In alphabetical order, he should be the last. However he is the first I wanted to look at. For many reasons. He is so important that the alphabetical order is discarded and the chronological order of my posts, which should have placed Warhammer material in the future, is also changed.
Introduction
Tzeentch is so important because he is the embodiment of change. He represents the vary nature of the world we evolve in. He is as unavoidable as life is to living organisms. Basically, what I am trying to say, is that Tzeentch permeates reality by representing Change itself.
He came close to dominating his evil brothers but they fought him and broke him. All that is said to be left of Tzeentch is an infinite number of small pieces. You cannot really destroy change. Change is fundamental to a Universe which is not dead. When Tzeentch dies, the Universe will have reached its own Heat Death.
In the world of Warhammer, Tzeentch is also responsible for what men call "magic". He bears many names, some of which are: "Great Sorceror of Chaos" , "Bringer of Change", "Chen the Deceiver", "Raven God", "Kurgan", "Great Conspirator", "Weaver of All Fates", "Lord of Change". He doesn't really try to improve himself however and prefers to influence the fates of others.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” --Leo Tolstoy
Maximum Entropy means Change is impossible
In our own Universe, any work needs a differential behind it. You can have a gravitational differential (mass), an electrical differential (potential), a momentum differential, a magnetic differential, a chemical differential(muscles) or a heat differential (and others). All sources of work exchange that differential. Just like a battery, which can be connected in a circuit, thus using its contained electric potential. When you do that, you deplete the battery. The difference in potential goes away. Then the battery cannot perform work anymore. You can thus say that the entropy of the battery is now greater than before. It is less able to accomplish work.
Entropy is a measure of the information contained in a system, i.e. a measure of the information needed to describe the system. If entropy increases, the amount of information required to describe the system also increases. Thermodynamic's second law tells us that entropy increases over time.
An easier way to understand this is that differences in temperature tend to equalise over time if they are in the same system (if they can interact). This can also be understood in the same way as voltage in an electrical circuit. The amount of electric potential, V, defines how much work you can perform with that potential.
All sources of work originates from raising the entropy of our universe little by little. Meaning that as we use this potential and little by little, it grows weaker. Life on Earth is possible thanks to the differential between day and night due to our rotation and to the presence of the Sun.
My point: Change is only possible while you still have differentials or while there is still contrast in this world. When all is black or all is white, you can't see anything.
Change is inevitable but not forever. So you can lower the entropy by a little bit here and there, by charging a depleted battery for instance, but overall, the entropy of the universe still rises. The Greeks of antiquity knew that time was the ultimate conqueror. Chronos (the name of the Titan) or the passage of time is unavoidable in this universe, in this dimension of reality. No matter where you live in this universe, the flow of events around you marks changes in the reality that surrounds you.
Atoms decay with time. Stars die in supernovae and black holes emit Hawking radiation until their own deaths.
Even the Cosmos itself, ever expanding, is not a static fabric; It is an ever changing, ever evolving complex system where time and space themselves are relative concepts.
The Cosmos or Universe is best seen as a Fabric of Spacetime. Not just space and time but one single entity called Spacetime.
Change is what allows us to measure time. When we envision the far future of the cosmos, theories tell us that it will be impossible to tell time because the universe will be too cold. Matter will have degraded into subatomic particles and the amount of empty space in between those particles will have expanded so much that their interactions will be ever more scarce. This is what we call "The Heat Death of the Universe".
The heat death of the universe is when everything is equal. All subatomic particles have spread out and there is no gravitational, electric or any other potential. Because we need to have different potentials to do work, when there are none, it is as if the universe had died.
When the universe reaches that point, at maximum entropy, no change will be possible and measuring time will also be impossible. In all practical terms, the universe will be dead. That will be the death of Tzeentch.
"Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed." --Antoine Lavoisier
Past, Present and Future
Do we follow a predefined path called by some "destiny"? Possibly. We can't really tell the difference. But we call that view of the world "determinism". Another way to say that past events predict and define the future. As if the future was already written, just waiting for us to reach it. But following that interpretation, it seems as if we can only "read" what has been written and not write our own stories. Again, as I just mentioned, we can't tell the difference. The actions you do, whether pre-determined or not, are what constitutes your story. So you can either view the world as if you are writing your story or as if you are reading it. But one thing is constant: How fast you read or write. In our universe, time is unavoidable whereas space is free. In other words, one day on Earth lasts the same time no matter who you are (on Earth). Mondays are unavoidable.
At least we can say that time is a one directional affair for us. But the movie Tenet by Christopher Nolan proposes a depiction of a world where causality, or the flow of entropy, or time, can be inverted.
It is also known that different observers in different frames of references can see each other's past and futures, depending on their relative speeds. The ability to see one's future makes you rethink determinism. However, even if someone in the universe can see your future, he or she could not bring you the information in advance.
Suffice to say that time is a measurement of events, the perception of which are always relative to the different observers. It is well known that events in a strong gravitational field will have their events spread out over a longer period of time, for an observer outside the gravitational pit. Again, Christopher Nolan brilliantly illustrated this fact in his film Interstellar (2014).
If time and space are so malleable and so relative, how can we make sense of our Universe?
"The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
--Albert Einstein
Black Holes and Parallel Universes
One interesting corollary of this "unavoidable passage of time" is that within the event horizon of a black hole, time and space are inverted. This means that within the event horizon, you could "in theory" move through time. Space however, is unavoidable: It only leads to the singularity and you can't change speed or reverse course. As such, it acts just like time does when outside of the event horizon. It acts as a certainty.
The singularity, seen in the above image at the top, which has a dimension (r) of 0, is the unavoidable destination of anything within the event horizon. In our Universe, we can move freely in space (represented as left and right in the above square). But time, for us, is a one sided affair: only forward, always at the same rate depending on your frame of reference.
Inside the event horizon, the axes are inverted. Left and right are now time travel while space is a one sided affair: only forward towards the singularity.
But for us, in our Universe, outside of black holes, time is a reassuring constant for some and a source of concern for others. But no matter your perspective here, time flows just the same. It only depends on the presence of mass or on speed to figure out your local frame of reference's time dilation. We know how time is dilated here on Earth. It is less dilated on the Moon. It is even less so at the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Moon.
With this, it is fitting to talk about parallel universes and white holes. But a simple image will have to suffice. Those topics are beyond the scope of this article however, they still complete the puzzle when it comes to the reality we are surrounded with. Our universe is at the bottom left.
(Above: Mapping the Multiverse. Source: https://www.pbs.org/video/mapping-the-multiverse-ymock6/)
Lavoisier's principle ("Nothing is lost or created but everything is transformed"), leads us to believe that in the cosmos, no matter if you enter a black hole or another universe, all energy and mass would be preserved, only transformed. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the information that falls in a black hole should be preserved, instead of being lost.
And so it is that once again, we are brought back to this notion that everything changes in the cosmos. Tzeentch is omnipresent. But is he omniscient? Can he predict the future? The answer is no. He is a God of Chaos after all.
"The message of this lecture is that black holes ain't as black as they are painted. They are not the eternal prisons they were once though...things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly to another universe. So if you feel you are in a black hole, don't give up - there's a way out." -Stephen Hawking
Unpredictability and Chaos
Chaos theory deals with the unpredictability of complex systems. A common example is that we can't predict the weather because a single butterfly's wings, which were not taken into account, could end up messing up your results, given enough time. It is all just about iterations of a complex system and the capacity to anticipate its future evolution.
To explain it differently, I would just say that if you have a small error in your initial model, this small error can be compounded over time and with enough time, your model will end up being completely false. This is why we say that complex systems, like the weather, cannot be predicted. Of course, I've written much about the fact that nothing is all black or white. You can predict tomorrow's temperature quite accurately, most of the time.
What you won't find on Earth today, in 2021, is a temperature forecast that will be accurate and precise for the next 30 days. We cannot do this because we cannot calculate everything! We don't know the positions of all the butterflies and birds and air pockets, etc. So our model is at best an approximation. And that means that the future in unpredictable.
Tzeentch changes that! Well, he does so in the Warhammer universe, at least, by manipulating possible futures and influencing creatures. So the God of Chaos that represents Change, Tzeentch, is not omniscient and cannot predict all future outcomes. As such, he fits into the Chaos Theory model. He fits well as the centre piece for your Chaos Army as well.
(Above: Greater demon of Chaos - Represents the Lord of Change. Copyright Games Workshop)
"You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing Star" --Frederich Nietzsche
Decoherence
One particularly interesting concept is that of decoherence. Following quantum decoherence, we lose the possibility of observing macroscopic superposition including Schrödinger’s live/dead cat.
What you are left with, given a bit of imagination, is two distinct macroscopic entities where before there was only one with a superposition of those states. I bring this up because it represents Change - Tzeentch - of course, but also because such an illustration is given in the film Coherence (2014). I strongly recommend that movie. If only to expand your mind on such concepts as quantum entanglement, decoherence and parallel states.
(Above: The trailer for the film Coherence (2014))
“Quantum coherence in the ion channels of the neurons and the neural circuits in the brain creates the decision behaviors and quantum cognition.”
― Amit Ray, Quantum Computing Algorithms for Artificial Intelligence
So is it because of quantum coherence that we have free will and the ability to change our futures? I think it is not the case. See in the resources below some material regarding Free Will, Causality and Neuroscience.
We are masters of our future and change does matter. Even if we follow a predetermined future, we still act as if we had free will because as stated earlier in this article, we can't tell the difference. So let us welcome Change, Tzeentch, as it is unavoidable. But beware, he seeks to influence your future by His ways, which are not good for you. So let's see how the future is ever changing and how we can predict it to some degree.
"To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." --Winston Churchill
Predicting the Ever-changing Future
I regard the future as a foggy vista, uncertain and full of possibilities. Things can be influenced in the future by today's actions up to a certain extent. I like to anticipate future outcomes. The cryptocurrencies markets and stocks markets have always fascinated me. Things are both predictable and unpredictable.
But it does not feel like bibliomancy, or any other primitive forms of predicting the future. The way I like to predict the future is by using my knowledge about history, human psychology and mathematics. In fact, anything and everything that is useful to consider. Since human societies and markets are themselves complex systems, it only makes sense to analyse them in this way.
Just like predicting the weather, my anticipation of tomorrow is pretty firm. But the future gets more hazy as we look farther out on the horizon. Then I like to gauge some limits, extremes of some form, that would be outliers on a normally distributed bell curve:
(Above: Bell curve distribution shown with Sigma deviations.)
However, just as with any system, the initial uncertainty regarding certain future events is always in flux as the system evolves. Some events become more probable than others were at the start of the prediction. This implies that constant updates are required. Otherwise a "time decay" will affect the predictions of the model.
I was recently reminded of two further laws that can useful in anticipating future trends. Metcalfe's law with regards to the usefulness and growth of networks as well as Moore's law with regards to the growth rate of humanity's processing power. I don't really agree with Moore's law because I think that drops in our growth rates are possible as well as sudden jumps. But it has been useful up to date while we still can count on the miniaturisation of semi-conductors to improve speed. We've reached the 7nm limit and without just adding more semiconductors (bigger chips), further improvement will be difficult. More about semiconductors in another article. They are today's Spice Mélange after all!
Here is my prediction for the price of Bitcoin from today to the end of the year. I am biased of course since I want this scenario to occur but at the same time, it is the result of all my research and conclusions. And this graphs was drawn quickly, it is not the exactitude of the values but much more orders of magnitude that matter. What we are about to witness is an exponential curve. Seen on a logarithmic scale, it looks like a linear growth function. But this graph uses a regular, non logarithmic scale. More on logarithms in a future article.
(Above: BTC/USD price history with an extension in blue)
I've tried to illustrate my concept of the ever changing future by showing 3 alternatives. One sees Bitcoin all the way up to 300K USD. It represents the +1 standard deviation from the middle value at 210K USD. This 210K USD value is the mostly likely in my opinion, to close off this bull cycle. The lowest point is at 110K USD and that represents a conservative approach and roughly a -1 standard deviation.
The extension bar patterns (in blue) are copies of those from the 2017 cycle end.
As you can see, the path I envision follows an exponential curve upwards no matter its magnitude. I have drawn 3 exponential curves to match each scenarios. Also note that whichever price we reach, it will not be in a straight line but in a volatile manner. Such volatility is thanks to a multitude of factors, which are all part of that market. It is those changes in price which allow us to realise profits. As such, change is good!
"It's not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change" --Charles Darwin
Coming Up Next
The next article by The Librarian for The Archive will look at various topics including but not limited to; Bubbles, Pyramids and Logarithms. Those "shapes" have some background behind them. Some are obvious, like the Egyptian pyramids and like soap bubbles, others are less visible. They are still geometric shapes that are fundamental to our Universe. Not as fundamental as Change but rather, influenced by change. Don't miss out. Subscribe now for more great content.
Thanks for reading!
