Bakker XXIX: Erratics and Impossible Erections

[Diziet]

Since the Dunyain were fleeing at the beginning of the Apocalypse

They were four years into it. Surely someone would have noticed by then.

[lokisnow]

Clearly, with no pregnancy nor threat of pregnancy they were a raucous hedonistic ecstatic sex cult and enaged in years of orgy until the no god was vanquished.

The anasurimbor bastard fathered the first child conceived after the no god died and the dunyain mistakenly assumed his super seed was responsible for the miracle ergo his progeny keeps an undunyain tradition of surnames

Naturally this transformed the hedonistic sex cult into an introspective breeding cult; and of course they interpreted this miracle conception to mean they also had to become super kewl ninjas in addition to becoming introspective eugenicists. I mean that's just obvious complementary skills progression of goals there.

[Callan S.]

If you've been rendered refugees and you find an empty castle, why wouldn't you enter it - babies or no?

It's a good point though - for all their up themselvesness (with someone elses heart up there too, apparently), the Dunyain only exist because world born people saved them.

[Shryke]

I always loved that part.

It's interesting that the analogy Cnauir uses is that a battle is an argument, which each side trying to convince the other they have lost.

The secret of battle is then conviction so strong, it cannot be swayed by any argument.

[Curethan]

I think this is a central theme. The belief and truth are indistinguishable from the inside and can be substituted to effect.

Conviction and certainty is power.

Understanding and knowledge are the tools with which intellect builds an unmovable certainty.

This theme runs through the various types of sorcery, the gnosis is the most powerful because it is based on stuff like fundamental geometric concepts - but the psukhe, couched in unfettered faith, is the purest and most abundant.

All magic users are learned, whether in theology or more practical concepts. The important part is the conviction produced.

Similar example, Conphas can use his understanding of the Scylvendi and impart this to his troops. War is intellect because intellect produces conviction.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Clearly, with no pregnancy nor threat of pregnancy they were a raucous hedonistic ecstatic sex cult and enaged in years of orgy until the no god was vanquished.

The anasurimbor bastard fathered the first child conceived after the no god died and the dunyain mistakenly assumed his super seed was responsible for the miracle ergo his progeny keeps an undunyain tradition of surnames

Naturally this transformed the hedonistic sex cult into an introspective breeding cult; and of course they interpreted this miracle conception to mean they also had to become super kewl ninjas in addition to becoming introspective eugenicists. I mean that's just obvious complementary skills progression of goals there.

Trouble is that if you have a hedonistix sex cult conducting orgies before, after, and.during breakfast, how do you pin down paternity on one guy? Although I wouldn't put it past Bakker to have the orgies be within faithful MFFFFFFFFFFF harems, maybe with a few castratis in the mix, in which case your thesis could stand.

[Anatúrinbor]

Ishuäl was not affected by the No-God. Secrets have metaphysical significance in Eärwa,

Ishuäl was the secret refuge of the Kûniüric High Kings, and no one, not even the No-God, could besiege a secret.

You can't even block it from the outside by 'raising walls' against it--not even from the Outside,

One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten.

No wonder that Ishuäl only succumbed from the inside.

his sentries stared pensively across the dark forests below, their thoughts stricken by memories of burning cities and wailing multitudes ... The cries of the dying crowded their thoughts with too much horror.

[...]

the child would listen to the wolves sing and feud through the dark forests. He would pull his arms from his sleeves and hug his body against the chill, murmuring his dead mother's songs and savouring the wind's bite on his cheek.

I realize that this is all a big stretch, but it is weird that there is no mention here (or anywhere in the chapter) of the No-God's "dread presence" on the horizon, which, according to the glossary, all men could sense. The sentries sound like they are suffering from erraticism more than No-God-ism.

[Diziet]

I always loved that part.

It's interesting that the analogy Cnauir uses is that a battle is an argument, which each side trying to convince the other they have lost.

The secret of battle is then conviction so strong, it cannot be swayed by any argument.

I think this is a central theme. The belief and truth are indistinguishable from the inside and can be substituted to effect.

Conviction and certainty is power.

Understanding and knowledge are the tools with which intellect builds an unmovable certainty.

This theme runs through the various types of sorcery, the gnosis is the most powerful because it is based on stuff like fundamental geometric concepts - but the psukhe, couched in unfettered faith, is the purest and most abundant.

All magic users are learned, whether in theology or more practical concepts. The important part is the conviction produced.

Similar example, Conphas can use his understanding of the Scylvendi and impart this to his troops. War is intellect because intellect produces conviction.

So the secret of battle being 'indomitable conviction' is a meaningless play on words?

[sologdin]

seems sufficiently significant to me.

indomitable conviction trumps domitable conviction. easy!

[Kalbear]

I've been thinking about that notion of conviction in the series all night, and I've come up with a crackpot theory.

One of the more common ideas we've been having is that Kellhus originally represents a person who believes in meaninglessness in a meaningful world. This is in strict opposition to Bakker's nihilistic viewpoint of our current world - and eventually, Kellhus goes 'mad' and becomes convinced that the world - and his part in it - have meaning.

But what if we've been paying attention to the wrong thing here? We had thought that Kellhus now believes in the God and No-God because they talk to him and he has these feelings of certainty - something that Moe will tell you is just the brain tricking you. We thought it was a similar trick. But what if that conviction is the main driver of the world and the Outside?

Simply put, the world - the non Outside part - is the part of the universe where one being's conviction about how to do things was strongest above all. Others can alter that world only in the ways it was put into place from the getgo - by mimicking that being's conviction about how the world is. The more clear they are about it - either by thought and meaning, or by feeling and intonation - the better they can do. But ultimately, that's just the overall codes for the world.

The part I'm getting at is that conviction goes beyond being the Few. If you are certain and feel certain, the world sides with you more. Or perhaps it's the other way around - the world sides with you more and gives you the feeling of certainty. This is most obvious with the White Luck Warrior; it's hard to be more certain about something than knowing it will happen because it's already happened. But it's also the case with the Judging Eye - the objective view of the world, certain of everything and where its place is. But it is everywhere.

What if Earwa, being a meaningful world, also turns the central conceit Bakker rails against regularly on its head. What if conviction makes fact? What if being more certain of your viewpoint makes you more likely to be right?

[Anatúrinbor]

How would a device like the damnation simulator from Neuropath come into play in this? If someone convinces you that you're damned (using a goad or whatever), does that make you damned for real (even if you weren't initially)?

[Diziet]

I have the feeling that if that were true Moenghus would have known.

But what if we've been paying attention to the wrong thing here? We had thought that Kellhus now believes in the God and No-God because they talk to him and he has these feelings of certainty - something that Moe will tell you is just the brain tricking you. We thought it was a similar trick. But what if that conviction is the main driver of the world and the Outside?

Are you saying that the No-God exists because Kellhus was so convinced that he spoke to him?

And what if what Fane experienced was true revelation. He had this profound belief that the Solitary God was and had the unique experience of being right and truly knowing that he was right which is like more powerful than just believing that one is right.

Same question, I guess. This only paves the way for a bunch of potential plot holes to show up. Was Conphas really a God?

[Kalbear]

How would a device like the damnation simulator from Neuropath come into play in this? If someone convinces you that you're damned (using a goad or whatever), does that make you damned for real (even if you weren't initially)?

Yes! That's one of the things I forgot to write. Namely, that the Consult is damned because they believe without a shadow of a doubt that they are damned.

Which means that if you can know - absolutely, 100% know that you aren't damned no matter what - then you may be okay.

I still think that this would be something of a copout for the universe; a universe that is arbitrarily shit but can be changed to be less shit is much less interesting to me than a world that is objectively cruel and dealing with said cruelty - but I'm buying that explanation a lot more now that I'm framing it in a world where certainty makes truth, instead of truth making certainty.

[Kalbear]

Are you saying that the No-God exists because Kellhus was so convinced that he spoke to him?

No, not that, not at all. I'm saying that if you are certain of something - if you have that feeling of certainty - it is because more than anything you are with the objective reality. That the feeling of certainness doesn't come from your brain tricking you and trying to make you happy, but instead from the outside of you.

If anything, it's the converse -that the God and No-God spoke to Kellhus because he was on the path of certainty.

I have the feeling that if that were true Moenghus would have known.

If you buy into the notion that moe was way more knowing about things than he let on, sure. But let's take him at face value. Let's say that Moe really was convinced in the Bakker model of the blind brain theory and that everything was a trick by your brain. He can't possibly know that certainty is the world's way of telling you that you're on the right path. He could never discover it, in the same way that he could never be passionate enough to be into Cish worship. How could he? For him, he's already found the one true way. The Dunyain spent 2000 years fighting the feelings of certainty and learning how to repress them and recognize them for falsehoods and delusions. What if that was all done to fight something that was natural to the world?

[lokisnow]

Amazing Kal. I love it.

Same question, I guess. This only paves the way for a bunch of potential plot holes to show up. Was Conphas really a God?

I've seriously posited this several times, here.

[Kalbear]

Another concept: we've talked before about how the no-god is an uncertainty, a non-collapsed waveform. What if the No-God is the opposite of certainty and therefore is why it is so powerful? That's why it asks questions; it literally has no conviction. It has no concept of what self is (similar to the blindsight aliens) and no concept of others except as abstractions.

It has no certainty.

[Diziet]

No, not that, not at all. I'm saying that if you are certain of something - if you have that feeling of certainty - it is because more than anything you are with the objective reality. That the feeling of certainness doesn't come from your brain tricking you and trying to make you happy, but instead from the outside of you.

Okay, I see what you're saying. It has to be a gradient though, right? The more you are convinced the more you're likely to be right? Also, how do competing agencies factor in? If a sorcerer thinks he's not damned but the whole world (or the Hundred) thinks that he is, is he still damned?

How could he? For him, he's already found the one true way. The Dunyain spent 2000 years fighting the feelings of certainty and learning how to repress them and recognize them for falsehoods and delusions.

But Moenghus knows that the Dunyain's philosophy is wrong, he says so outright. And he has practiced the Psukhe himself. Plus, he grasped the thousandfold thought.

And again, why was Conphas so convinced of himself if he was on wrong path, seeing as he was beheaded? How come for 2000 years most of Earwa's inhabitants were convinced that the Consult is nothing but a myth?

[Kalbear]

Okay, I see what you're saying. It has to be a gradient though, right? The more you are convinced the more you're likely to be right? Also, how do competing agencies factor in? If a sorcerer thinks he's not damned but the whole world (or the Hundred) thinks that he is, is he still damned?

It's not about thinking something; it's about feeling it.

Think of conviction and certainty not as a viewpoint about something, but as a sensation - a sensation similar to hearing or sight. You can tell you're on the right path or the wrong path by that feeling of certainty. The world, the universe, lets you know. The Inverse Fire might do something special in that regard - it might short circuit that feeling by giving you an overload of what the feeling is when you're wrong, when you're totally off the path. Note how the Consult described themselves after the Inverse Fire - how they said that no matter what atrocities they committed they did not feel the slightest bit wrong. Note that description - feeling wrong.

But Moenghus knows that the Dunyain's philosophy is wrong, he says so outright. And he has practiced the Psukhe himself. Plus, he grasped the thousandfold thought.

Moe never said that. Moe said that they were wrong about magic, but he also said something along the lines of 'I've studied for 30 years and through all I've seen I've not seen a single sign of the One God, just squabbling demons in the Outside". He is still utterly devoted to the Dunyain philosophy, and specifically states "I am Dunyain...what are you?" to Kellhus. He practiced the Psukhe, but he could not use it to deliver his conviction of feeling because he has none. He has zero feeling of conviction. he can make a statement - like Kellhus can, and make that declarative in its meaning - but not in its feeling.

And again, why was Conphas so convinced of himself if he was on wrong path, seeing as he was beheaded? How come for 2000 years most of Earwa's inhabitants were convinced that the Consult is nothing but a myth?

Why do you say Conphas was on the wrong path? What if his path was to aid and help Kellhus to get where Kellhus needed to go?

Note that the Consult might not figure into the wrongness of the world or the rightness. Remember that they're effectively invisible to the universe, or at least to the gods. What if they just aren't part of the certainty equation? You can't feel right or wrong about them, as they're just not there.

But I don't buy that. A simpler explanation is that all that time the people felt that there was something wrong with their view that the Consult was gone. That they were stating things based on peer pressure, or mocking others - but knew in their heart that this wasn't totally accurate. It's hard to say.

[lokisnow]

Seswatha's heart imprints tremendous certainty on the Mandati.

[Kalbear]

Maybe.

Here's one quote from Moe:

You gave them certainty, though all the world is mys­tery. You gave them flattery, though all the world is indifference. You gave them purpose, though all the world is anarchy.

Another:

"A fortuitous Correspondence of Cause," Moënghus replied, "nothing more. That which comes before yet deter­mines that which comes after. How else could you have achieved all that you have achieved? How else could you be possible?"

- pretty clear that he still believes in the Dunyain philosophy.

This was the quote I was remembering.

''The Dûnyain," Moënghus continued, "think the world closed, that the mundane is all there is, and in this they are most certainly wrong. This world is open, and our souls stand astride its bounds. But what lies Outside, Kellhus, is no more than a fractured and distorted reflection of what lies within. I have searched, for nearly the length of your entire life, and I have found nothing that contradicts the Principle."Men cannot see this because of their native incapaci­ties. They attend only to what confirms their fears and their desires, and what contradicts they either dismiss or overlook. They are bent upon affirmation. The priests crow over this or that incident, while they pass over all others in silence. I have watched, my son, for years I have counted, and the world shows no favour. It is perfectly indifferent to the tantrums of men."The God sleeps... It has ever been thus. Only by striv­ing for the Absolute may we awaken Him. Meaning. Purpose. These words name not something given... no, they name our task."Kellhus stood motionless."Set aside your conviction," Moënghus said, "for the feel­ing of certainty is no more a marker of truth than the feeling of will is a marker of freedom. Deceived men always think themselves certain, just as they always think themselves free. This is simply what it means to be deceived."