Monday, July 25, 2011

Modus Tollens and WoW Achievements

In an effort to perpetuate my chastity I spent a chunk of this weekend working on WoW achievements, one of which was Destruction Derby. This achievement requires that one destroy four types of vehicles in a particular battleground. After destroying three of the required vehicles I then focused upon destroying Siege Engines, something of a pain in the ass given that Horde captures the Siege Engine spawning zone in around 87% of matches and bla bla you don’t care about these details at all.

I destroy two of the damn things, and do not receive credit for doing so. This irks me, so I submitted a GM ticket. Herein shall be found part of that conversation:

GM: The big question I have it - when you were attacking the Siege Engine, did you get the killing blow?

Me: In both cases I dps'd through the final percents, but I do not know how to tell if I had the killing blow. Other than some kind of modus tollens induction.

GM: Ok. Unfortunately I can't tell either. :( And now I need to steal modus tollens for myself in casual conversation, thank you.

GM: There are a few reports about this achievement, but mostly the credit for it is centered around that killing blow.

Me: Alright. So if I get the killing blow, then I get the achievement. I didn't get the achievement, therefore I didn't get the killing blow?

GM: That would be my conclusion for now. Unless you do it again and confirm that you got the killing blow., in which case we start over. :)

Me: Woo modus tollens.

GM: Yar.
Couple things. First, how cool is it that the GM is going to utilize ‘modus tollens’ in casual conversations now? Second, modus tollens is fucking bullshit especially with respect to computer programs within which bugs are not only possible, but are routinely found. “But wait!” you exclaim, “For what reason is it bullshit?” Well, here’s how modus tollens works:

If P, Then Q.
Not Q.
Therefore, Not P.

Or

If I masturbate, then I orgasm.
I did not orgasm.
Therefore, I did not masturbate.

Fucking bullshit, right? I mean, sure, if one provides particular constraints on the causal relation, or sneaks in a poorly formed biconditional, then one can horseshit one’s way into making modus tollens kinda vaguely maybe reasonable to fuckheaded dipshits whose comprehension of deterministic causal relations would most mirror Shia Labeouf’s comprehension of fuck-all-anything, but no such constraints exist within reality, for one, and World of Warcraft, for a number other than one. The fact that I did not receive Destruction Derby tells me nothing about whether or not I landed a killing blow given the possibility of situations other than a tight biconditional relation between killing blows and achievement acquisition.

It is conceivable, nay, possible that one could fulfill the requirements for this achievement, could land a killing blow, and not receive the achievement as a result of a server flummox, a programming error, magic, or any number of other causal agents.

And all I’m saying is that maybe (maybe) modus tollens isn’t the best troubleshooting technique unless one happens to be understanding the totality of reality from an Archimedean Point.

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