Philosophy regarding eventuality

[Shreddies]

In the story I'm writing there is a seemingly inept wizard whose specialty is dominion over 'Lost Socks'. Anyway, a few of his friends get together and discuss ways of making it useful (aside from being able to always find those socks that go missing in the wash). I have one character come up with an argument that all socks are lost socks eventually, so given enough time they all are in his domain.

Now I'm trying to come up with an argument for something akin to 'it WILL be lost = already IS lost', or at least that it contains a trait of 'lostness'.

I was thinking of using a version of the static theory of time, (the difference between past, present, and future are subjective, like there, here, and far away). But I'm not so sure, since it feels like I'm swatting a fly with a sledgehammer.

I'm also tempted to just go with Insane Troll Logic, but I wanted it to make at least a little sense, provided you didn't look too closely at the logic behind the argument.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[CupofJoe]

I'd go with anything Buffy...
More seriously... I think you may be over thinking the problem...
I try to work with Occam's razor. I like the idea of a potential "lostness" for things, that somethings can be more potentially lost than others. Once you've set up the basic idea, you can let the readers fill in the gaps.
Personally I believe that all lost socks are the domain of the Green Sock Eating Monster [that lives in the lint trap of my dryer].

 

[Saigonnus]

I always thought the sock gnomes stole them, using them to make clothes, hammocks and other useful things for their community beneath the dryer.

Edited: Even assuming the UNlost socks can be influenced by a guy who has control over lost socks, that still won't explain exactly how they could be useful to him within the scheme of the story. What can they do? fall down? become instantly frayed and the frayed ends get tangled together, tripping the wearer? spontaneously combust? Stink so badly that everyone within 20 feet can smell them even in shoes?

 

[Shreddies]

Hah, yeah I've lost a few socks to the sock monster too.

Anyway, I didn't intend to limit it to just socks lost in the wash or elsewhere. The reasoning I've worked out, by applying the various meanings of 'lost', includes socks that are no longer found anywhere, destroyed, never used, were designed but never made, should have been made but weren't, etc. Basically every sock in existence or non-existence is lost eventually. (Need a sleeping bag? Giant's could have existed, and surely some of them would have worn comfy socks. )

The nature of the problem in the story though, requires at least some explanation as to why would he be the master of all socks now, instead of simply 'eventually'.

 

[Cursive]

I presume that waiting a few millennia for all the socks to become lost isn't very helpful.

There is an impossibly complicated method of predicting the future that requires knowing and calculating every known variable in the universe. It works well for, say, an quantum particle. If for once instant you know it's location and rotation and speed and some other variables you can predict where it will be in the next instant. For determining wether or not socks get lost you would only have to determine how quantum particles affect atomic particles affect atoms, etc etc to organisms and their surrounds, how it correlates with pyschology and emotions and behavior. Given all the variables you could map the course of everything for the rest of time. Then he could determine which socks would be lost and when.

That was fun.

More directly, if you want him to be instantly in charge of all socks you could posit some sort of eternal recurrence model of existence, where all time is on a loop and repeats itself without any changes endlessly. Nietzsche talked about that idea a bit in his works. With that model all socks that ever existed have not only been lost but they have been lost an infinite number of times.

That sort of spins your formula around and adds to it. Not only have all so ms been lost in the past, but they will continue to be lost in the future and indefinitely so.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Hm.

Well, if all lost socks of past, present and future are in dominion, one might argue he is what causes socks to be lost in the first place. His existance guarantees that as long as there are socks, a certain number of them will be always lost.

Now, logically, lost socks are only lost after they are misplaced. Otherwise they are just socks. The fact that they have to be lost implies that this ability is limited by causality - it requires a specific even to have happened to his target, or he causes that event to happen. Either way, he can't control future socks on the grounds that they will be lost at some point.

Unless of course his ability involves time travel. Suppose that what he actually does is cause socks to vanish by displacing them in space-time? The reason you can't find your sock is because he caused it to travel to a new location in the past or present.

And if you really want him to go all Unlimited Socks Works, the best approach is probably to use alternate timelines and say he has access to every possible sock that could be lost, because any sock that could exist and be lost does exist and was lost in a different timeline. That's effectively infinite socks.

 

[The Tourist]

This reminds me of the farmer that did not listen to weather forecasts. He stated that he just hung up an old donkey's tail outside the kitchen window.

He stated, "If I can see it, it's sunny. If it's wet, it's raining. If it's gone, there's a tornado."

I think the premise is a case of "over think." My view is that if the socks are missing, my Aunt Clara's kids took them. Heck, they'll steal anything.

Think horses, not zebras.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Every sock like every other object contains within itself the potential of lostness. It has been lost in the past and it will one day be lost again. Also where was it before it was a sock? It was only a potential sock which is a lost sock as viewed through the prism of time travel. Equally does it have to be whole sock that is lost for it to fall within his domain? Or can it be only part of a sock - a missing thread say? Equally is a sock lost if its found a few minutes later under the dryer? And once it's found is it no longer within his domain, or having once been lost will it always be a part of his domain?

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Shreddies]

Even assuming the UNlost socks can be influenced by a guy who has control over lost socks, that still won't explain exactly how they could be useful to him within the scheme of the story. What can they do? fall down? become instantly frayed and the frayed ends get tangled together, tripping the wearer? spontaneously combust? Stink so badly that everyone within 20 feet can smell them even in shoes?

One of his abilities is that he can find any sock that has been lost, in the story a friend of his 'accidentally' misplaced one of his socks in a crate that ended up being stolen by the villain of the story, meaning he can track them easily. Another, more everyday ability, is that he can conjure up clean socks that didn't exist before, meaning that if he doesn't want to wear them, he can use them as makeshift bags, weapons (rock in a sock), etc. The sky is pretty much the limit provided he has enough creativity to use it right.